Whose is the best?

[Anonymous]

Total confusion over whose FICO score I should purchase.

After paying for all three reports from each of their sites, paying for a score from each site, and spending over $2K in the last month paying off old medical bills (from my past as the beat-up non-wife of an abusive alcoholic/druggie) and successfully disputing/deleting many old & inaccurate items from my three credit reports.. I have now learned that apparently the scores they give you aren't really accurate and that ordering your true FICO from FICO is the only way to see where you really stand.

I really don't want to spend another $45 for me, plus $45 for my spouse just to see each of their stupid "real" numbers. Seems rather like a scam that I paid the three credit bureaus each for that same number and apparently it was BS and now FICO wants me to pay AGAIN to see the real deal..

Sooo... is the difference really so dramatic that it's worth it to get the real FICO? And to get all three? Or is one of the three bureau's considered the most accurate and can I get away with ordering just that one score for $16?

-Wanting to see daylight at the end of the poo-lined credit tunnel,

Ivyalmighty

[Anonymous]

fico scores are specific to each report and very dynamic, so they are all theoretically equal in importance. 1 agency may be slower at updating balances, the other may have more inqs, and the other may or may not have all your acounts being reported to it. each of these can and will imoact you score for that agency.

example my tu score is 698, ex 585. and if you want the only consumer real fico score then you are stuck feeding the fico monster.

[Anonymous]

oops, forgot the all 3 question. that's your call, are you looking to app a specific product that pulls a known report everytime? if so why buy tu, when they are going to check ex?

[Anonymous]

I'm still not clear on what FICO will tell me that is different from what I paid the individual agencies to tell me. And, why there is a difference...not between each agency, I know they all may not have the same info, but I mean between EX score from EX and EX score from FICO)??

Reworded: If FICO takes their score from each of these three bureaus, how and why will it differ from what the bureaus reported to me directly?

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, ivyalmighty, welcome to the forums! A lot of this is addressed on Credit Scoring 101, which is stickied at the top of this board and several others. The very first post deals with FICO vs FAKO.

I'll try to boil it down: There are three main credit bureaus or CRA's, plus a bunch of wanna-bes. The credit bureaus maintain your credit reports, composed of the information that your past and current creditors have submitted on your accounts. Many years ago, FairIsaac saw a market for a score that would attempt to predict which consumers were likely to be good credit customers. They approached each CRA, each one of which wanted a slightly different twist, and developed a score formula for each. The three original formulas have been tweaked over the years, but we still have FICO scores for Equifax (EQ), TransUnion (TU), and Experian (EX.) Lenders started using these FICO scores in conjunction with their own internal checklists.

Some years ago, consumers became aware that there was such a thing as a "credit score" which was very important in their financial lives. They also learned that they ought to check their credit reports. Well, since they were pulling their credit reports from the CRA's, it occurred to the CRA's that they could create some credit scores themselves and sell them. If you read through their score reports, you'll see that they never say that they are FICO scores. (In addition, the three CRA's have gotten together to create a single credit score called the Vantage score, which they are trying to market to lenders, although not with a lot of success yet.)

At any rate, the scores invented by the CRA's, which are pretty universally called FAKO's, are a bunch cheaper than FICO's, so understandably, people like to buy FAKO's. Only when they go into a mortgage lender's office, apply for a loan that they think they qualify for, and get denied, do they find out that their scores are FAKO's, and pretty meaningless in the real world. (Or apply for a credit card, or installment loan, etc.)

So this is not FICO trying to get you to pay even more for your scores. This is just that you're one of many people who got fooled into thinking that you were buying something useful, and it wasn't. And by the way, the CRA's take a cut out of every FICO score sold, which is why they cost more than FAKO's.

Sorry to hear that you've had a tough time up to now. We're glad you're here!

[Anonymous]

Well put Hauling. Cudos.

[Junejer]

Hi ivyalmighty, save yourself a few bucks by googling for myfico discount codes.