I got my 3 free credit reports but where is my credit/FICO score?

[Anonymous]

Obviously I'm new to this, but I was under the impression that your credit report would include your credit score. All my reports had were a bunch of "OK"s, but I didn't see a score on them.  Anyone know how I can get my fico scores for free or cheap?  Thanks in advance.

[llecs]

Where did you get your 3 free credit reports? From annualcreditreport.com? If so, you have to pay extra for those scores, and only one of the 3, Equifax, offers a real FICO score. The other two are not FICO scores and, IMO, would be a waste of money to buy them.

The only place to get your EQ and TU scores together in one place is myFICO.com (this website). You can also get your EQ FICO score from Equifax.com as mentioned. And, aside from this website, you can get your TU FICO score from transunioncs.com (note the-cs). All reports are about $15.95 or so. If pulling from here, be sure to google "myFICO discount codes" for some extra savings.

BTW, almost forgot, as of last February Experian no longer allows consumers to access their own FICO score.

If you see any offers for scores anywhere else, it is very likely it is not a FICO score and lenders don't use these other scores.

[Anonymous]

Ilecs,

Thanks for your thorough response.  I got my reports from annualcreditreport.com.  I'll read up on the faq section that I just found.  Thanks for the advice.

Message Edited by drewsky6 on 05-16-2009 08:39 PM

[Anonymous]

one more question. How important are your credit reports. The FICO score is important, yes, but how important are the credit reports compared to your credit scores? Thanks

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
one more question. How important are your credit reports. The FICO score is important, yes, but how important are the credit reports compared to your credit scores? Thanks

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Your credit report is what they use (with their formula) to come up with your FICO score.

Any lates showing on the Credit Report (especially recent ones) will make a big ding in your score.  That gets worse the later you are.  Account over the limit - ding, Too many inquiries - ding. Utilization too high - ding.  The younger the Average age of accounts is the worse (it will not ding your account as such but couldl limit your score potential somewhat).

TO calculate that take the amount of time each card has been open - add them up and divide by number of accounts (in months)

i.e. Macy card opened May 08 = 12

Cap one card opened July 08 = 10

Other card opened Jan 09 = 4

Total = 26

divide by 3

Average age of accounts = 8 months. (8.5 but will be rounded down)

As those accounts age and remain in good standing your score will go up

Worst things to see on your report are

Bankruptcy

Foreclosure

Judgement

Charge off / Collection (paid or unpaid makes little difference but paid will look better on manual review)

If your credit score is just shy of what you need for a loan or something then the lender will look at the actual report - if it is clean and good they are more likely to give you leeway.

[Anonymous]

susy,

Wow, thanks for all that info. I'm glad I signed up with this place

[Anonymous]

You're welcome.

I really didn't start looking at this stuff until a year ago (no credit scores in the UK and the first two years I was here I thought I was going home til I went and fell in love and got married!)

I had to start from zero and build my way up since then - good thing is it means I can just keep being positive.

My husband on the other hand had a bunch of credit cards and loans he fell behind on when he was a student and an intern over a really short period of only 4 months.  His score went from 700+ to less than 500.  I have spent the last year learning about this stuff and working on his to get him back up to the 620s+ Found myfico a couple of months ago and it was invaluable at getting his scores over that 620 hurdle (from 590).  Just reading and asking questions and listening to the replies gave me more information in thos last 2 months than i had found anywhere else in the previous 10 months.

Message Edited by Susyquk on 05-16-2009 09:09 PM

[RobertEG]

Here is the quick and dirty.  NO ONE who generates credit scoring (including Fair Isaac/FICO) maintains any data for generating your credit score.

It ALL comes from your credit files accumulated by the CRAs,

Even true FICO scores are NOT generated by Fair Isaac.  They cant.  They simply sell their scoring algorithm, and then scoring using their algorithm is done by the CRAs based on their data. 

[Lel]

drewsky, this is not related to your original question, but in the future you might want to consider spacing out your annualcreditreport.com pulls.  That is, just pull one report from one agency every 4 months, instead of pulling all 3 simultaneously.  This is sort of like a free credit monitoring service.

The every-four-month suggestion is predicated on confirming that the info contained on all three credit reports is essentially the same.  For me, there are some minor differences - some closed or paid accounts appear on only 2 of 3 credit files, for example - but they all report all my active accounts the same way.

[llecs]

OP, be sure to check these out:

Common Abbreviations

Credit Scoring 101 - great for knowing what is in your credit score and to see how your score is impacted.