topic Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 01:58:57 GMT

Hello, I've been reading here regularly for a while and I've searched the forum for a definitive answer on this and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for (apologies if I have missed it). I accessed my FICO 08 scores at Credit Check Total today (the first time I've downloaded my actual FICO 08s), and was surprised that my Equifax score was much lower than Transunion and Experian. To answer the obvious questions, the reports are mostly showing the same information (see below) and they are legitimate FICO 08s. So my question is what's up with Equifax?

Equifax 663

Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)

159,619.00 in mortgage debt

40,694.00 in installment debt

2 late accounts (1.3 years ago- don't get me started on this)

6 inquiries (4 in last year, 2 in last 6 months)

no public records

4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)

22 total accounts

Transunion 722

Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)

159,619.00 in mortgage debt

35472.00 in installment debt

2 late accounts (1.3 years ago)

7 inquiries (6 in last year, 5 in 6 months)

no public records

4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)

20 total accounts

Experian 719

Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)

Mortgage doesn't show

8448.00 in installment debt

1 late accounts (1.3 years ago)

7 inquiries (3 in last year, 2 in 6 months)

no public records

4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)

18 total accounts

The revolving debt levels are the same across all reports. You'll see that the Equifax and TransUnion are mostly identical, 2 small installment accounts (work-related) that are a little over 3 years old (all on-time payments) show on Equifax and not TransUnion so that's the only big differences. Thoughts?

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:07:09 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello, I've been reading here regularly for a while and I've searched the forum for a definitive answer on this and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for (apologies if I have missed it). I accessed my FICO 08 scores at Credit Check Total today (the first time I've downloaded my actual FICO 08s), and was surprised that my Equifax score was much lower than Transunion and Experian. To answer the obvious questions, the reports are mostly showing the same information (see below) and they are legitimate FICO 08s. So my question is what's up with Equifax?

Equifax 663
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
159,619.00 in mortgage debt
40,694.00 in installment debt
2 late accounts (1.3 years ago- don't get me started on this)
6 inquiries (4 in last year, 2 in last 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
22 total accounts

Transunion 722
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
159,619.00 in mortgage debt
35472.00 in installment debt
2 late accounts (1.3 years ago)
7 inquiries (6 in last year, 5 in 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
20 total accounts

Experian 719
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
Mortgage doesn't show
8448.00 in installment debt
1 late accounts (1.3 years ago)
7 inquiries (3 in last year, 2 in 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
18 total accounts

The revolving debt levels are the same across all reports. You'll see that the Equifax and TransUnion are mostly identical, 2 small installment accounts (work-related) that are a little over 3 years old (all on-time payments) show on Equifax and not TransUnion so that's the only big differences. Thoughts?

Why the differences in the total accounts? Determine the missing accounts and my guess you'll determine the difference in the scoring. This big of a difference in scores suggest a derog of some kind.

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:09:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Hello, I've been reading here regularly for a while and I've searched the forum for a definitive answer on this and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for (apologies if I have missed it). I accessed my FICO 08 scores at Credit Check Total today (the first time I've downloaded my actual FICO 08s), and was surprised that my Equifax score was much lower than Transunion and Experian. To answer the obvious questions, the reports are mostly showing the same information (see below) and they are legitimate FICO 08s. So my question is what's up with Equifax?

Equifax 663
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
159,619.00 in mortgage debt
40,694.00 in installment debt
2 late accounts (1.3 years ago- don't get me started on this)
6 inquiries (4 in last year, 2 in last 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
22 total accounts

Transunion 722
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
159,619.00 in mortgage debt
35472.00 in installment debt
2 late accounts (1.3 years ago)
7 inquiries (6 in last year, 5 in 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
20 total accounts

Experian 719
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
Mortgage doesn't show
8448.00 in installment debt
1 late accounts (1.3 years ago)
7 inquiries (3 in last year, 2 in 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
18 total accounts

The revolving debt levels are the same across all reports. You'll see that the Equifax and TransUnion are mostly identical, 2 small installment accounts (work-related) that are a little over 3 years old (all on-time payments) show on Equifax and not TransUnion so that's the only big differences. Thoughts?
Why the differences in the total accounts? Determine the missing accounts and my guess you'll determine the difference in the scoring. This big of a difference in scores suggest a derog of some kind.

Thanks for the quick reply! The Equifax report has 2 installment accounts (both 3 years old, paid on-time, and nearly paid in full) that aren't reporting with any other bureau. There is one older installment with a late payment, but it's reporting on both TransUnion and Equifax. Experian is missing the 3 aforementioned accounts plus my mortgage, no derogs there.

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:17:53 GMT

What are the date of the lates and how late were they? No charge offs or collections of any kind? Any disputes?

Also is the installment listed for 40K on EQ, 35K on TU and 8K on EX the same installment or different? If same, why are the balances so different?

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

CreditBob — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:17:08 GMT

I see that in Equifax you have a higher balance in installment debt? Is it a student loan that in deferred or in forbearance? Was your mortgage loan opened recently or how long ago? Have you opened any new accounts within the last two years? And lastly, have you possibly overlooked something, just asking? I see that Equifax has 22 accounts on it. The thought on that is you have lowered your average account age down? That will happen when you open new accounts.

Other than that the only thing that I can suggest is doing a 3B report from all three through the Myfico website?

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:22:23 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
What are the date of the lates and how late were they? No charge offs or collections of any kind? Any disputes?

Also is the installment listed for 40K on EQ, 35K on TU and 8K on EX the same installment or different? If same, why the so different balances?

The lates were both 30 days, 8/2015 and 11/2015. (On a $1 balance but that's neither here nor there)

No charge offs, no collections, no public records, no disputes

This is the breakdown on installments

Reporting same to all 3

$8,448.00

Reporting same to TU and EQ (nothing for EX)

$27,024.00

Reporting only to EQ, no negatives, 3 years old, 12.5 starting balance on both

$2,922.00

$2,300.00

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:25:40 GMT

@CreditBob wrote:
I see that in Equifax you have a higher balance in installment debt? Is it a student loan that in deferred or in forbearance? Was your mortgage loan opened recently or how long ago? Have you opened any new accounts within the last two years? And lastly, have you possibly overlooked something, just asking? I see that Equifax has 22 accounts on it. The thought on that is you have lowered your average account age down? That will happen when you open new accounts.

Other than that the only thing that I can suggest is doing a 3B report from all three through the Myfico website?

I broke down the installment loans above, none are student loans. The mortgage was opened in July 2015. I have 3 new accounts on opened in last year- 1 is a credit card reporting to all 3, 1 is an installment loan reporting to all 3, and 1 is an installment loan reporting to both EQ and TU but not EX. My average age of account is the same accorss all 3.

Thanks to both of you for helping me dig deeper into this.

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:28:58 GMT

Is the 12% of 50K on one CC or multiple cards? Is it a CC, charge card or AU? If multiple card, can you break down the utilization/CL of each?

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:38:39 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Is the 12% of 50K on one CC or multiple cards? Is it a CC, charge card or AU? If multiple card, can you break down the utilization/CL of each?

Sure! Here is the current breakdown (same on all 3 cards):

7 Cards showing a balance (all CC, 12 total cards)

1. $5/5000 0.1%

2. $39/300 13%

3. $66/750 8.8%

4. $29/300 9.67%

5. $4388/10000 43.9%

6. $805/12200 6.6%

7. $743/3000 24.8%

Again, each report shows same balance across each card. Side-note, I know this many statement balances is not a good way to optimize my score. Several annual fees hit at once on cards I rarely use. Additionally, Card #5 typically doesn't have such a large balance, just forgot to pay off before statement cut. But again, this info is reflected on all 3 reports, Equifax is the only that seems to care (if this is the reason for the big gap between that report and the others).

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

CreditBob — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:41:46 GMT

From what you are stating I can see two things. The first thing is that you opened three accounts within the last year. The second one, and I am just going to take an educated guess, is that you have three new accounts with high balances. In addition you have inquiries within the last 12 months. And opening new accounts has caused your average account age to drop.

I found this for Experian but it will help give you a better idea.

https://www.figfcu.com/documents/fico/FICO%C2%AE%20Score%20Factors%20Guide%20-%20Experian.pdf

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:45:26 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Is the 12% of 50K on one CC or multiple cards? Is it a CC, charge card or AU? If multiple card, can you break down the utilization/CL of each?
Sure! Here is the current breakdown (same on all 3 cards):

7 Cards showing a balance (all CC, 12 total cards)

1. $5/5000 0.1%
2. $39/300 13%
3. $66/750 8.8%
4. $29/300 9.67%
5. $4388/10000 43.9%
6. $805/12200 6.6%
7. $743/3000 24.8%

Again, each report shows same balance across each card. Side-note, I know this many statement balances is not a good way to optimize my score. Several annual fees hit at once on cards I rarely use. Additionally, Card #5 typically doesn't have such a large balance, just forgot to pay off before statement cut. But again, this info is reflected on all 3 reports, Equifax is the only that seems to care (if this is the reason for the big gap between that report and the others).

I'm not sure, one of the more fico gurus may will hopefully chime in, but I don't know if there is a penalty if 100% of your cards report a balance. If so, I wonder if EQ penalize more for this? Just a thought, as nothing is popping up from what you've share so far.

Maybe knock 1-4 down to 0 and see what that does to your scores.

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

CreditBob — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:48:45 GMT

Right off the bat you have a balances on multiple revolving accounts. Multiple is two or more credit cards that have a balance. #4 & #5 that you stated are showing high balances of 67% & 44%.

Here is what I would do. Payoff all but one credit card. On the last revolving account leave a $ 10 balance for the optimal score. Allow all inquiries to age past 12 months. Then pull a new Equifax report & see what happens. In the mean time do not apply for new credit so it does not hurt your average account age.

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

CreditBob — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:53:10 GMT

https://www.myfico.com/ficocreditscoreestimator/estimator.aspx

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 02:55:48 GMT

@CreditBob wrote:
Right off the bat you have a balances on multiple revolving accounts. Multiple is two or more credit cards that have a balance. #4 & #5 that you stated are showing high balances of 67% & 44%.

Here is what I would do. Payoff all but one credit card. On the last revolving account leave a $ 10 balance for the optimal score. Allow all inquiries to age past 12 months. Then pull a new Equifax report & see what happens. In the mean time do not apply for new credit so it does not hurt your average account age.

For optimal scoring, CreditBob is right, you only want one card reporting a balance and all the other cards reporting 0.

However, if that is not currently financially feasible, if your overall util is <9%, shoot for less than 50% of your cards reporting a balance. This why I suggested knocking cards 1-4 on your list down to zero since they have lower balances and may be easier to tackle right out of the gate. But if you're wanting to optimize your scores, you only want want one of the cards to report a balance and all others report 0 with an overall util less than 9%.

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 03:00:00 GMT

Thanks both of you for the advice! I've paid all but one down to $0, and that one will be reporting less than 10% utilization when it closes. It will be a few weeks before the credit reports reflect the new balances, but 2 of them are Chase cards that typically report again when the balance reaches $0 so maybe it will be soon. Is it possible that Equifax is more sensitive to a higher number of accounts reporting?

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 03:06:43 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks both of you for the advice! I've paid all but one down to $0, and that one will be reporting less than 10% utilization when it closes. It will be a few weeks before the credit reports reflect the new balances, but 2 of them are Chase cards that typically report again when the balance reaches $0 so maybe it will be soon. Is it possible that Equifax is more sensitive to a higher number of accounts reporting?

EQ has always been my worse score. It's closer now to TU than it's ever been. It's been father apart in the past, but recently caught up. It seem to be a tougher score - atleast for my profile - YMMV. I suspect you will see a good 20 - 30 points jump, if your scores behave as mine did when I did the same. Good luck!

If you remember, please update your post with the results so others can learn from you!

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 03:13:16 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks both of you for the advice! I've paid all but one down to $0, and that one will be reporting less than 10% utilization when it closes. It will be a few weeks before the credit reports reflect the new balances, but 2 of them are Chase cards that typically report again when the balance reaches $0 so maybe it will be soon. Is it possible that Equifax is more sensitive to a higher number of accounts reporting?

Just to clarify, to avoid fico penalty, you want the overal util to be less than 9% (so < 8.99%).

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

SouthJamaica — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 03:37:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello, I've been reading here regularly for a while and I've searched the forum for a definitive answer on this and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for (apologies if I have missed it). I accessed my FICO 08 scores at Credit Check Total today (the first time I've downloaded my actual FICO 08s), and was surprised that my Equifax score was much lower than Transunion and Experian. To answer the obvious questions, the reports are mostly showing the same information (see below) and they are legitimate FICO 08s. So my question is what's up with Equifax?

Equifax 663
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
159,619.00 in mortgage debt
40,694.00 in installment debt
2 late accounts (1.3 years ago- don't get me started on this)
6 inquiries (4 in last year, 2 in last 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
22 total accounts

Transunion 722
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
159,619.00 in mortgage debt
35472.00 in installment debt
2 late accounts (1.3 years ago)
7 inquiries (6 in last year, 5 in 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
20 total accounts

Experian 719
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
Mortgage doesn't show
8448.00 in installment debt
1 late accounts (1.3 years ago)
7 inquiries (3 in last year, 2 in 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
18 total accounts

The revolving debt levels are the same across all reports. You'll see that the Equifax and TransUnion are mostly identical, 2 small installment accounts (work-related) that are a little over 3 years old (all on-time payments) show on Equifax and not TransUnion so that's the only big differences. Thoughts?

To my eye, the reports look wildly different.

I wouldn't be expecting the scores to be the same.

Re: Difference in FICO 08 Scores at Equifax

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 03:47:37 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Hello, I've been reading here regularly for a while and I've searched the forum for a definitive answer on this and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for (apologies if I have missed it). I accessed my FICO 08 scores at Credit Check Total today (the first time I've downloaded my actual FICO 08s), and was surprised that my Equifax score was much lower than Transunion and Experian. To answer the obvious questions, the reports are mostly showing the same information (see below) and they are legitimate FICO 08s. So my question is what's up with Equifax?

Equifax 663
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
159,619.00 in mortgage debt
40,694.00 in installment debt
2 late accounts (1.3 years ago- don't get me started on this)
6 inquiries (4 in last year, 2 in last 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
22 total accounts

Transunion 722
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
159,619.00 in mortgage debt
35472.00 in installment debt
2 late accounts (1.3 years ago)
7 inquiries (6 in last year, 5 in 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
20 total accounts

Experian 719
Utilization: 12% (on 50.2k available)
Mortgage doesn't show
8448.00 in installment debt
1 late accounts (1.3 years ago)
7 inquiries (3 in last year, 2 in 6 months)
no public records
4.1 years oldest account (2.8 years AAoA)
18 total accounts

The revolving debt levels are the same across all reports. You'll see that the Equifax and TransUnion are mostly identical, 2 small installment accounts (work-related) that are a little over 3 years old (all on-time payments) show on Equifax and not TransUnion so that's the only big differences. Thoughts?
To my eye, the reports look wildly different.

I wouldn't be expecting the scores to be the same.

I would agree that the Experian report is kind of an outlier, but the differences between Equifax and TransUnion don't seem like they'd cause a nearly 60-point difference. The only real difference is two installment accounts that are nearly paid off and no negatives that's reporting on Equifax and not TransUnion. I don't see why that alone would hurt my Equifax score at all (since they are over 3 years old, paid on time, and nearly paid off), much less by 60 points. Thoughts?