Experian PLUS Score

[Anonymous]

So as I understand it from my reading on this site, the Experian PLUS Score isn't the same as the FICO score from Equifax and Transunion, and it doesn't carry as much weight with lenders. Is this correct? And if so, why bother to keep up with all three of them?

[JM-AM]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So as I understand it from my reading on this site, the Experian PLUS Score isn't the same as the FICO score from Equifax and Transunion, and it doesn't carry as much weight with lenders. Is this correct? And if so, why bother to keep up with all three of them?

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The EX score is their version of a score which is not used by majority of lenders. I believe Ex is being sued presently for this reason. Ex does have a Fico score that can be obtained from a lending institution and a credit union in PA. 

[GregB]

Plus Score is not used by any lenders. It is only sold to consumers. EX spells this out on their website.

EX probably sells at least 10 scores to lenders. Hard to tell if they sell more than 30 to lenders like TU since they don't give prospective customers a complete catalog of all the different products they provide.

There are 50+ scores in the current TU catalog but a good 20 or so are not what we would normally call credit scores, which is generally thought of as a score that qualifies someone for acquiring new credit. There are scores designed to tell a lender how much they want to keep someone as a customer, how likely they are to go BK, how much money the lender is likely to make of the customer. There are several scores designed to qualify for various types of insurance. Also, about 10 of the credit scores are versions that are old enough that they are not likely to be used by very many lenders.

[poops]

I know the EX PLUS score is a FAKO... However, how accurate is it in determining one's creditworthiness? For instance, if my PLUS score is 740, how would that translate to a real EX credit score?

[GregB]

It is rare that someone reports their EX Plus Score to be more than 100 points different than their EX Fair Issac v2, which is the FICO used for almost all mortgages and is the EX FICO that was available here before the EX/myFICO agreement was discontinued.

Mine was 82 points off when I last had a score from both on same day. My EQ FICO and EX FICO were usually the same +-10 and my EQ FICO and Plus are currently different by 61 points. With almost identical info on all three CRAs, EQ has me below the median and EX Plus has me as Excellent, their highest catagory. That is not close enough to be worth anything, in my opinion.

[ChesterPDexter]

 I just edited out my reprinting of a conversation with USAA's Experian CreditCheck Monitoring.  I don't want to badmouth them; their service is what it is.  It's not their fault that I was not clear that they show PLUS scores, not FICO scores.  I never really knew what they were, but now I'm crystal-clear after reading around here.  And now I won't be so mad when the scores shown don't budge when a positive change happens in my credit reports; I realize the scores are just, well... "FAKO"s, so to speak.

The service is pretty good for showing changes as they happen. 

I wonder how different the FAKO (PLUS) scores are from real FICO scores but I guess it does not really matter.  I'm just trying to clean up my reports and they calculate things like utilization for me and keep up with that on a daily basis and that's good enough for me.