@veryh2o wrote:I spent the whole day today checking out my credit scores from various sites. Here's my current standing:
from Amex credit secure. ex 761, trans 761, eq 761
from myFico, eq 781
from experian site, ex 761
from Transunion site, trans 801
I just applied the chase ink card and i had difficult time with chase as they always denied my request. i hope i can get the card this time. Does the business credit cards look at different set of credit score?
I am also confused cuz why there are so many different score from different sites? Aren't they suppose to be the same? Which scores will be the ones that the bank look at when i apply a loan?
thanks,
I don't know whether Chase evaluates different scores for their business products as opposed to their personal cards. But they likely look at FICO scores for both, whether they pull only one report for personal and all three for business products, for example, I don't know.
As for why there are so many different scores, and why they are different, there are a couple reasons for that.
First, a credit score is basically an algorithm that attempts to reduce all of the various information in your credit report to one single metric (a numerical value) that is a predictor of your risk of defaulting on future payments. Fair Isaac has the most established prouct with lenders. Their scores, FICO scores, are the most widely used by those offering credit; therefore, their scores are the most valuable to consumers as you want to know what a lender is actually going to consider when reviewing your application.
There are many competing scoring models, Vantage, Plus, etc. These are all commonly referred to on this site as FAKO scores. FAKO is a play on FICO, but it doesn't mean that the scores are fake. They're just a competing scoring model. For all intents and purposes though, at least at present, you probably don't want to place any weight on your FAKO scores because lenders (for the most part) don't. It doesn't have to be that way, it just is. If the alternative scoring models managed to beat out Fair Isaac in the market for credit scoring, then you would want to purchase those scores. But at present, Fair Isaac has dominated the market so you want your FICO scores.
That addresses one way the scores vary, i.e., depending on which scoring model you are viewing, you will get a different score for the same report. So your Equifax FICO will likley be different from an Equifax FAKO. But you can also see differences across the reports because the information isn't necessarily the same. So even if you are comparing FICO to FICO, Equifax and TransUnion won't necessarily have the same score because you might have different informaiton on your Equifax and TransUnion reports.
(There are also different FICO scoring models, kind of like updated versions (think WindowsXP versus Windows7), but someone else would have to address that. I don't know, for example whether the decision of which model to use is made at the lender level or at the level of the credit bureau. So it is unclear to me whether one lender would pull a TU FICO that would differ from another lender because the lender chose a different FICO scoring model, or whether TU consistently applies the same FICO version to all requests for a FICO score from their report. I would guess lenders would have a say in that and would just have to pay accordingly, but perhaps a MOD can address that.)
As for the scores you pulled, the one you pulled from myfico.com for Equifax is a FICO score. The other scores are all FAKO scores. You cans get your TU FICO from this site or www.transunioncs.com (note the cs). For Experian, there is a credit union, PSECU, that you can join to get your score; otherwise, you'd have to get it from a lender pull.
Starting Score: ~500 (12/01/2008)