MISLEADING SCORES AND GIMMICKS TO GET YOUR MEMBERSHIP

[Anonymous]

I AM SO DISAPPOINTED IN ALL CREDIT REPORTING AGENCIES THAT MISLEAD U INTO THINKING OUR CREDIT SCORES THEY SHOW ARE YOUR SCORES FROM THE THREE BUREAU'S.  THIS IS NOT TRUE AT ALL.  WHAT YOU SEE IS SOME BOGUS SCORE FROM WHERE I DON'T KNOW.  I HAVE SEARCHED THE NET TO FIND MY SCORES THAT ARE TRUE SCORES.  I HAVE JOINED EVERY MEMBERSHIP OUT THERE BEFORE I STARTED TO FIND THE TRUTH.  THE LATEST SITE I FOUND IS MYFICO WHICH ADVERTISED THAT THE SCORES THEY HAVE ARE THE MOST ACCURATE SCORE THAT THE LENDERS SEE.  NOT TRUE.  I BEGAN TRYING TO RAISE MY MIDDLE SCORE TRANSUNION THAT WAS 594 TO 620.  WE ARE BUYING A HOUSE THRU FHA AND THIS WAS THE ONLY OBSTACLE WE HAD TO OVERCOME.

I FILED SOME DISPUTES THRU TRANSUNION AND ACCORDING TO MYFICO MY SCORE WENT TO 619 AS OF OCT. 22, 2009.  I CALLED THE LENDER T LET THEM KNOW SO WE COULD PROCEED WITH OUR CLOSING DATE OF NOV 13, 2009.  THE LENDER PULLED MY SCORES FROM CBCINNOVIS AND MY SCORES HAD NOT CHANGED FROM SEPTEMBER 21, 2009.  I WAS UPSET AND EMBARRASSED.  NOW I AM IN THE SAME POSITION I STARTED AT.  I CALLED MYFICO AND THEY GAVE ME THE SAME SONG AND DANCE THAT EVERY OTHERS COMPANY GAVE ME. THE LADY WAS SO RUDE AND STATED I GUESS YOU WANT TO CLOSE YOUR MEMBERSHIP.  I SAID YES BECAUSE I AM NOT GETTING A TRUE SCORE.  THEN SHE OFFERED TO CONTINUE MY MEMBERSHIP AT 8.95 A MONTH.  I TOLD HER SHE NEEDED TO BE REPROGRAMMED.

I DON'T KNOW HOW THESE COMPANIES CAN DO THIS WHEN THE INFO IS JUST SOMETHING THEY PULL OUT OF THE AIR

DISAPPOINTED

[llecs]

Welcome to the forums!

First off, know that there are only a select few places you can actually get your FICO scores. For Equifax, you can get your EQ FICO from Equifax.com, myFICO.com, and from your lender. For TransUnion, you can get your TU FICO from transunioncs.com (note the -cs), myFICO.com, and from your lender. For Experian, they only place you can get your EX FICO classic score is from your lender and a small CU in PA called PSECU. Any other source, like Experian.com or Transunion.com, do not offer FICO scores. As you mentioned, those other scores are "bogus". We call them FAKOs.

Know that most mortgage lenders pull a FICO score when considering your credit, and they will pull all 3 and will use the middle of the 3 scores for consideration of the loan. There are different FICO formulas out there that are used by lenders. Not every lender uses the same FICO formula. Some formulas are new and some are older and lenders pick and choose the one they need based on economics and based on whatever they need.

For EQ FICO, this website and Equifax.com uses a Beacon 5.0 score as will a vast majority of lenders out there. Your EQ FICO likely matched if the one you pulled here was pulled on the same day as your lender.

You likely don't have access to your EX FICO (unless you got it from that CU in PA) so there's nothing to compare that to.

Finally, the TU FICO on this website and transunioncs.com (note the -cs; the only two places you can get your TU FICO aside from your lender) is a TU98 version. Unfortunately, most lenders now are using a TU04 version. For many here, their TU FICO did not match what the lender pulled when compared on the same day. However, you can actually shop around with other lenders (you should be doing that anyway to get a better rate) and you'll likely run into a lender that pulls TU98, which would match the score from this website.

Be careful with the disputes. Some lenders will deny your loan if you have any disputes reporting at the time of the report pull. If you initiated these disputes last week, you won't see a conclusion of some of these disputes until after your closing date.

Within myFICO, you have the option of two "services" that allow you to track your FICO score. One is ScoreWatch (SW) and that periodically tracks your EQ score only. The other is FICO Quarterly Monitoring (TUQM) which follow TU only via a new TU FICO report every 3 months. If you are basing this off a service, then you are using is TUQM. The price for TUQM is under $5/mo. If the CSR was offering you a price at $8.95, then she was referring to SW. Make sure you aren't confusing your EQ score with your TU score.

In short, you are getting a true FICO score. It just so happens your lender is pulling a different version.

[Karatz]

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@llecs wrote:

Welcome to the forums!

First off, know that there are only a select few places you can actually get your FICO scores. For Equifax, you can get your EQ FICO from Equifax.com, myFICO.com, and from your lender. For TransUnion, you can get your TU FICO from transunioncs.com (note the -cs), myFICO.com, and from your lender. For Experian, they only place you can get your EX FICO classic score is from your lender and a small CU in PA called PSECU. Any other source, like Experian.com or Transunion.com, do not offer FICO scores. As you mentioned, those other scores are "bogus". We call them FAKOs.

Know that most mortgage lenders pull a FICO score when considering your credit, and they will pull all 3 and will use the middle of the 3 scores for consideration of the loan. There are different FICO formulas out there that are used by lenders. Not every lender uses the same FICO formula. Some formulas are new and some are older and lenders pick and choose the one they need based on economics and based on whatever they need.

For EQ FICO, this website and Equifax.com uses a Beacon 5.0 score as will a vast majority of lenders out there. Your EQ FICO likely matched if the one you pulled here was pulled on the same day as your lender.

You likely don't have access to your EX FICO (unless you got it from that CU in PA) so there's nothing to compare that to.

Finally, the TU FICO on this website and transunioncs.com (note the -cs; the only two places you can get your TU FICO aside from your lender) is a TU98 version. Unfortunately, most lenders now are using a TU04 version. For many here, their TU FICO did not match what the lender pulled when compared on the same day. However, you can actually shop around with other lenders (you should be doing that anyway to get a better rate) and you'll likely run into a lender that pulls TU98, which would match the score from this website.

Be careful with the disputes. Some lenders will deny your loan if you have any disputes reporting at the time of the report pull. If you initiated these disputes last week, you won't see a conclusion of some of these disputes until after your closing date.

Within myFICO, you have the option of two "services" that allow you to track your FICO score. One is ScoreWatch (SW) and that periodically tracks your EQ score only. The other is FICO Quarterly Monitoring (TUQM) which follow TU only via a new TU FICO report every 3 months. If you are basing this off a service, then you are using is TUQM. The price for TUQM is under $5/mo. If the CSR was offering you a price at $8.95, then she was referring to SW. Make sure you aren't confusing your EQ score with your TU score.

In short, you are getting a true FICO score. It just so happens your lender is pulling a different version.

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+1

Knowledge IS Power

[Anonymous]

llecs

thanks for the information.  i was not aware of this information at all regarding scoring.

again, thanks 

[StartinOver]

llecs, I have a question for you regarding this statement: Be careful with the disputes. Some lenders will deny your loan if you have any disputes reporting at the time of the report pull. If you initiated these disputes last week, you won't see a conclusion of some of these disputes until after your closing date.

Question: I have a copy of my report that a lender had pulled. On it I several a couple of instances where it states that :consumer disuputes this account information".  Does that mean when I disputed it over a year ago, they left the message there and it is being counted against me, and keeping me from getting credit? When do they remove it? Is this a good thing (somewhere in my mind is a thought saying they must remove the negative account if they never finished within the 30 days responding to me). Please explain the good or bad about that statement being on my credit report after a long period of time. I know that during the first 30 or so days it keeps them from using it against me, right? TIA, I am just starting a very proactive approach to cleaning up my credit super fast to hopefully get my score high enough to buy a house before April 30th.

[llecs]

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StartinOver wrote:

llecs, I have a question for you regarding this statement: Be careful with the disputes. Some lenders will deny your loan if you have any disputes reporting at the time of the report pull. If you initiated these disputes last week, you won't see a conclusion of some of these disputes until after your closing date.

Question: I have a copy of my report that a lender had pulled. On it I several a couple of instances where it states that :consumer disuputes this account information".  Does that mean when I disputed it over a year ago, they left the message there and it is being counted against me, and keeping me from getting credit? When do they remove it? Is this a good thing (somewhere in my mind is a thought saying they must remove the negative account if they never finished within the 30 days responding to me). Please explain the good or bad about that statement being on my credit report after a long period of time. I know that during the first 30 or so days it keeps them from using it against me, right? TIA, I am just starting a very proactive approach to cleaning up my credit super fast to hopefully get my score high enough to buy a house before April 30th.

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By law (FCRA) creditors must insert that statement when a dispute is initiated with the CRAs. A dispute should last no more than 30-45 days and the statement should fall off. Well, sometimes they do not. Also, sending letters to your creditors like GW letters, PFD letters, DV and OC letters, and so on can also result in that comment being placed on your CR. I have one baddie remaining and that comment is forever engrained into the CR resulting from all the GW letters I sent them.

That comment can impact your score too. A dispute comment exempts the financial and payment history components of that TL from your FICO score. So, in my example mentioned above, I had an auto redeemed repo w/ a slew of lates. My second to last baddie was removed and my payment history went to "Great", despite having a major derog listed on my CR. Moreover, one of the positive factors listed on my CR was that I had no late payments, despite being quite visible within the CR. In this example, the comment is forever a good thing. Once the comment is removed, my score may drop. It can also be a curse. If you have an otherwise good account with one solitary late and you disputed it (I'd never recommend that) or you sent a GW letter, and that comment appears, then your score can drop if the balance and CL helped your score. BTW, the comment only impacts OC accounts.

In reading over in Mortgage Loans, I've found that lenders typically frown on the comment, no matter how recent. Lenders are probably thinking that the potential borrower is gaming the system by submitting mass disputes to clear up any baddies or to artificially inflate the score at the time of the credit pull. I've seen some flat-out denials because comments were on the report. IMO, tread carefully and wait for input from the lender before trying to clear any comments. Let them know that it has been a year since the dispute and that it is not recent. They'll likely just ignore it. If you are fixed on a particular lender and needed to remove the comment, there are ways to do it by communicating with the OC.