Help Understanding my Score

[Anonymous]

Hello, was hoping someone would be able to explain my scores to me.

I use equifax and was able to pull my three scores:

EQ 642

EX 617

TU 625

However when I pulled my FICO score it was 682, why is there such a discrepancy?

[MarineVietVet]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello, was hoping someone would be able to explain my scores to me.

I use equifax and was able to pull my three scores:

EQ 642

EX 617

TU 625

However when I pulled my FICO score it was 682, why is there such a discrepancy?

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Hello and welcome.

It sounds you you bought the "Equifax Complete" product. None of those are FICO scores. In fact there is no 3 in 1 monitoring systen at this time that does sell FICO scores. Several months ago Equifax began selling their own proprietary Equifax Credit Score and this is what you get with their Equifax Complete monotoring service. The EQ Credit Score is based on different scoring formulas than FICO scores and in fact the range for the EQ Credit Score is 280-850 whereas FICO scores range from 300-850.

You can't rely on these non-FICO scores for reliability or accuracy. Your true FICO's could be actually higher (as in your case) or lower than what you have at present. No one has been able to buy their own Experian FICO score since February of 2009. Creditors can pull Experian and also there is a CU (PSECU) in Pennsylvania that supplies that information to it's members only. You can only buy true FICO scores at a few places. One place is here at myFICO.

At one time you could also purchase your Transunion score at transunioncs.com but that site seems to have stopped doing that. Wal Mart now offers a TU score to those who have their store card and the Discover version

Equifax will still sell you a FICO score but you have to look very hard to find it. You can get to it here: www.equifax.com/web-myfico-products/

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

[Anonymous]

To piggyback on MVV's wisdom, I'll quote llecs on this, cuz he lays it out nicely.

"Virtually everyone sells scores, but they are not all FICO scores. If you got scores from the big 3, then very likely 2 or all 3 of them are not FICO scores. Experian and TransUnion do not sell FICO scores on their website. Equifax does sell FICO scores but it is very hidden and difficult to find. It's not on their products page. We call these non-FICO scores, FAKOs, and can easily be as much as a few points to 100+ points off your real FICO when pulled the same day. If it didn't say "FICO" next to the score, then it isn't.

Other companies (e.g. freecreditreport.com, freescore.com, truecredit, creditkarma, Equifax Credit Complete, Quizzle, and dozens of others out there) sell scores, but they are nothing more than gimmicks and lenders don't use them. They do this because they want to avoid paying any fees to FICO and when they say "credit score" people buy it anyway on the assumption that it is a FICO. The scores are off because the formula is different, factors in different things as compared to FICO, and score ranges are different than FICO's (e.g. FICO is 300-850, Vantage is 501-990, PLUS is 330-830, TransRisk is 350-850, and so on)."

Hope that helps!