Understanding FICO® Scoring

[JPersat]

If they both use, essentially, the same information..why are they so different?

[DaveSignal]

They don't weigh the different aspects to exactly the same degree, sometimes they calculate AAoA completely differently, and sometimes FAKO gives points for things the FAKO provider deems beneficial, such as having a card with a credit limit over $5k.

Sometimes FAKO is close to FICO.  Sometimes not.   When the banks approving your applications are looking at FICO to determine your risk, this is the score you should be more closely following.

[pizzadude]

FAKOs have different scoring rules for AAoA, utilization, inquiries, closed accounts, AU accounts, just to name a few differences. Yes they are based on your EQ, EX, or TU reports but they evaluate and score the information very much differently.

[Repo-ed]

They are as different as night and day

[marty56]

If your FAKO score is close to your FICO score then IMHO you are very unlucky.

[Flying_High]

Hello, so can you tell me why my TransUnion.com CS is 697 and why my TransUnion FICO CS is 741???

[MarineVietVet]

---

JBEACH wrote:

Hello, so can you tell me why my TransUnion.com CS is 697 and why my TransUnion FICO CS is 741???

---

The score you get from the Transunion website is not a FICO score. It's called a VantageScore and very, very few lenders use it.

The TU score here is a FICO but it's an older version (TU98).

[westo12]

---

MarineVietVet wrote:

---

The score you get from the Transunion website is not a FICO score. It's called a VantageScore and very, very few lenders use it.

The TU score here is a FICO but it's an older version (TU98).

---

Does this mean the FICO TU avail here is not used by a lot of lenders? 

[pizzadude]

---

westo12 wrote:

---

MarineVietVet wrote:

---

The score you get from the Transunion website is not a FICO score. It's called a VantageScore and very, very few lenders use it.

The TU score here is a FICO but it's an older version (TU98).

---

Does this mean the FICO TU avail here is not used by a lot of lenders? 

---

YMMV.   Some lenders still use TU98, like Navy Federal Credit Union.   But for mortgages, creditors will exclusively use the FICO04 score models.