@axxy wrote:It doesn't specifically say a specific score is used by 90% but the wording id FICO score. Which is a valid statement.
The wording is not just "FICO Score." It's "The FICO Score." There is a big difference between "a FICO score" and "the FICO score." I'm just saying myfico.com needs to add a clear disclaimer, such as a disclosure that "the FICO score" does not mean "the FICO score used by mortgage lenders." Otherwise it gives the appearance that they want to mislead customers for the purpose of increasing the number of Score Watch subscribers. That's the kind of attitude I would expect from a small fly-by-night company, not a big respected company such as this. How hard could it be to add such a disclaimer, and make sure people who sign up for Score Watch are aware of it?
Well, the "big lenders" do credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, business loans, etc etc etc. saying "FICO is used by 90% of the top lenders" is like saying "90% of people wear shoes". which brand of shoes? well it depends on the day and time of day, whether they are going running or to the opera, etc etc etc. I'm not wearing shoes right now because I'm at home, but I will wear shoes to walk the dog. I understand your peeve, however, it's just advertising. It has to be simple or the average consumer won't even read it.
"I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to see advertising intended to mislead customers" (modified quote from Casablanca).
I think perhaps you are both missing the point. The MyFICO offerings here are geared to getting you access (for a fee) to all three credit bureaus, to improve your understanding of what is on your credit reports, and what your FICO scores are, relative to credit cards. That may not be clearly stated, but it becomes apparent with research (and responses to your questions here). The monitoring notifies you of changes to your credit files which influence those FICO scores, relative to the current scoring model that MyFICO is using for this service. That model has changed, the model will change. The specific instance of FICO used here may not be exactly the model you find for another application, but the vast majority of lenders do use some form of Fair Issac FICO for scoring credit apps.
There are also educational resources where you can browse and find out about all the "flavors of FICO".
Other banks and types of lenders (mortgage, auto, etc) use different scoring models. So your presented score is going to be different in those contexts. In each of those contexts, the method of calculating the credit score is different, but it is applied the same to all applicants for that credit product, so your relative score should be similar and the lender takes that into account. They don't compare "Hey, you are a 760 on FICO Credit Card, but 690 on our mortgage app, what gives?" because they are scaling the 690 to others on that measure.
At the end of the day, all you can do, for any credit scoring, is pay your bills on time, keep utilization under control, have a range of types of credit products you've borrowed and paid back, and keep a close eye on whether your scores are improving or not. Putting too much emphasis on any one score is not going to change your underlying credit file, only your actions do that. The research and discussion you learn here are helping you to better understand that.
And, the $20 x 3 months that you spent for the initial subscription, that did lead you to learn something about credit scores, so even if you don't like the specific result of the fee, you don't like what you learned, the learning makes you smarter for the next credit decision you have to make. You cannot unlearn this. You did get something out of that $60, so complaining about the advertising isn't fair. Your choice now is, cancel the subscription if it doesn't seem to provide useful information.
The other factor is, the $20 per month is an explicit revenue source for the MyFICO web site. Notice the only advertising is the consistent scroll bar of credit card offerings? Thus there is no conflict of interest such as CK, and other websites that live only on advertising, are "free" otherwise, where they try to route you into products you might not need. By paying a fee here, you get truth and not marketing.
Cheers!