Understanding FICO® Scoring

[movinup1]

I've been itching to app for a new card, after 6 months of on-time payments & low utilization w/my Cap 1 card, so I apped for a Kohl's card and got approved!  Only a $400 limt (womp, womp), but it felt good.  So I did a little more research and decided to for Discover (same day).  Well, that was denied and the letter they emailed me referenced a EQ FICO score of 628.  My ScoreWatch score, from here at MyFico.com is 646.  Why the discrepancy?  This credit game is so hard to keep on top of.  1 step forward, 2 steps back.  Seems like when you got it somewhat figured out, you actually dont! 

Thoughts?

[llecs]

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movinup1 wrote:

I've been itching to app for a new card, after 6 months of on-time payments & low utilization w/my Cap 1 card, so I apped for a Kohl's card and got approved!  Only a $400 limt (womp, womp), but it felt good.  So I did a little more research and decided to for Discover (same day).  Well, that was denied and the letter they emailed me referenced a EQ FICO score of 628.  My ScoreWatch score, from here at MyFico.com is 646.  Why the discrepancy?  This credit game is so hard to keep on top of.  1 step forward, 2 steps back.  Seems like when you got it somewhat figured out, you actually dont! 

Thoughts?

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Whenever I see posts like these, I try to narrow out the sources of error and if everything is explained away, then it becomes a mystery.

First off, did you get an alert or purchase a new EQ FICO on the same day Discover pulled your EQ? If not, could anything have changed to result in an 18 point difference (e.g. changes to balances, etc.)?

Are you sure that the FICO version used by Discover is the same as the FICO version used on myFICO? Many CCs do use either their own score or a CC-enhanced FICO.

I suspect the latter. I recall a couple of posts whereby the posters were adamant that Discover used a FICO08 version, which would be Beacon 9.0 vs. the Beacon 5.0 on here. Don't take my word for it, but that could easily explain the score difference. If I had that, I'd probably call Discover out of curiosity, though finding a CSR who knows anything about FICO scoring are practically nil.

[YahComb]

from what i understand, discover uses card-enhanced scores usually.