topic Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 21:50:00 GMT

Hello all-

So I have been working on my credit for about 8 months now. Had some rocky times and let just about everything go into default. So early last year my score was around 481 - I know.. awful..

So I have gotten the judgements taken care of and removed, opened up a few lines of credit and haven't been late.

Well I use Credit Sesame, Credit Karma, Experian for score and report updates. I just had my score pulled on Credit Sesame for all 3 about 2 months ago...

Experian 572 Equifax 582 Transunion 542

Today I checked and it's at

Experian 581 Transunion 573 but didn't have Equifax.. so I went to Equifax popped off 16 bucks to pull it....

496??? What??? Am I going crazy? How does that make sense?

Is it possible the Equifax score hasn't updated or could it be different from the one Credit Sesame pulls?

How could Credit Sesame be over 580 but the actual equifax site be 496? I also pulled flat Experian cause I was going crazy and sure enough it's the same as Credit Sesame and so is Trans Union vs Credit Karma and Sesame..

I know about vantage scores, fico 8 etc but that is a huge swing. It doesn't make sense. Can anyone shed some possible light on this for me?

Equifax has the best report as well. Least amount of collections etc

Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Gidgetmom — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 23:10:25 GMT

If you purchased a report/score directly from Equifax, you most likely received their proprietary score. It is certainly possible that it hasn’t updated and you should be able to tell by reading through the reports from all of bureaus.

When I was purchasing my reports and scores from EQ, it was never a Fico or vantage score. They have their own scoring model.

Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 23:17:19 GMT

You said you know about Vantage Score vs FICO but this post is contrary to that statement.

Don’t look at scores without looking at BOTH the bureau pulled AND the score algorithm.

This is a very common question here — if you need to know your credit score first find out what you want to apply for and see what credit score that product pulls.

Nobody pulls Vantage score so automatically ignore any website offering that useless score.

Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 01:33:50 GMT

You need to pull your Fico scores if you really want to know your scores. All those scores mentioned in your title are fakos unless they specifally say Fico.

Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 02:15:02 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I know about vantage scores, fico 8 etc but that is a huge swing. It doesn't make sense.

You identified the problem right there. You cannot compare scores when they are generated using different criteria. The only 3 criteria that go into a score is the scoring model, the bureau data used and the time at which those first 2 pieces of data were used. At least the first 2 out of 3 criteria you are saying are different, which can easily constitute a 100 point swing in either direction. Essentially, you're comparing apples to apples.

I'd suggest doing a $1 trial membership with CCT to get your 3 FICO 08 scores. If you want just 1 free one, go with creditscorecard where you can get your EX FICO 08 score. At least then you'll get an idea of where you really stand FICO wise.

Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 14:52:16 GMT

Hey all,

Thanks for the reply!

I did some more research and as I was aware of the different models etc, I hadn't had any experience with them. I ditched the Sesame subscription and signed up with My Fico. It gave me a better scoring model to go by and also gave me different scores from Fico 3,5 up to 9 on different lender types. Ie: Credit Cards, Auto loans etc.

So the actual scores are 542 540 and 546. Which is still a step up from the bottomless pit I was in!

I can see how Sesame and Karma inflate the numbers based on either an average or simulator. They just got me overly excited haha.

What's bizarre is how low Fico 9 scores are. They hammered everything down significantly.

Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 14:58:13 GMT

Now you have a foundation for where you're starting, congrats! It's a big step to face it. I was near your score in January 2017, now I'm in the 700s, so you can do the same.

Some questions to help you get started:

What new credit accounts have you opened since you started your rebuild?
Have you been putting 10% of your income away in emergency savings, to only be used if you lose your job or are injured?
What steps have you taken to clean up your negative credit reporting?

These 3 steps are all part of rebuilding, in what I call the "Triple Whammy" of credit. You can't ignore any of the three steps, in fact if you want perfect credit forever more, you have to do all of them at the same time! Especially step #2 which assures you that you will never be late again.

Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 15:29:35 GMT

Hey ABCD,

Well I started with the Primor Secured card (now Greendot) back in July $250 limit

Then I moved to Fingerhut in October, Credit One in November, Self Lender in November

December I found out about the shopping cart trick and pulled 4 of those, not a single hard pull

The issue is having so many new accounts but I wanted to create a large enough gap so my utilization would stay low.

My credit age is 11 years and average account 4 years. The new cards seemed to help right off the bat - when I was using Credit Sesame my score jumped 37 points in a month.

So I use them and pay them off - with the store cards I would spend about $30 bucks and just paid the statement - left $5 bucks on each one.

As far as savings yes, I went big time into that haha. Opened up a NFCU account through my brother - Checking, savings and a CD as well. I have TD Ameritrade for investing (somewhat new account) and 2 seperate savings accounts through 2 banks that I deposit $50 into each paycheck as my emergency. (Also put $75 into NFCU every check as primary) I have an ok back up, not nearly where I want to be but a start.

The negative credit is the tough one.

4 charge offs - All through Cap one and some old collections - 5 to be exact

The charge offs are what's killing me as most of the collections are 3-4+ years old

I disputed 2 old ones and got them removed - didn't effect score

I got capital one crazy about 4 years ago when my score was 630. Then I had a $840 a month daycare payment so things went south haha.

So now I'm full blown managing my finances etc... Odd thing is now I'm enjoying it.

Not sure what to do with the charge offs $304, $2100, $1478 and $3360 auto. I've been more concentrating on getting my savings in order first before splurging on old debts. So yeah, that's my story.

Re: Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma vs Equifax and Experian

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 15:37:33 GMT

The rule I have for folks I have is simple: you don't pay down any old debts until your emergency savings plan is growing every paycheck.

Once you've done that for say 2-3 months like clockwork, you're welcome to use UP TO 50% of your emergency savings to negotiate payoffs with old debts. Chargeoffs with balances come first. Collections to be paid IF you can get a PFD (pay for delete) in writing. If you don't get any PFD acceptance from collections, keep offering it every month until someone accepts, but keep growing your emergency savings account.

If you can get $3000 saved into emergency savings, allow yourself $1500 of that to pay off a chargeoff, or pay off a PFD collection. Chargeoffs won't work PFD style but once paid you can use the goodwill saturation technique to beg them to remove the chargeoff. This worked for me in 2017.

As long as your emergency savings account grows every paycheck (minus whatever you use to pay off old debt), you're in great shape!

With your account age, I'd say you are looking at high scores in 1-2 years. The more you write letters (goodwill, PFD requests, etc), the faster your scores will be in the 700s. I wrote hundreds of letters, emails, faxes, linkedin messages in 2017 and I went from low 500s to low 700s in 9 months and I expect to skirt 800 by the end of the year (less than 2 years from low 500s) but I also had a hefty income and savings so YMMV!

So the order of operation is:

Savings first
50% of savings allowed to pay off chargeoffs with balances (to the OC), or...
50% of savings allowed to pay off collections if PFD only (to the CA)
Keep growing savings
Do not use savings for house down payment, vacation, Christmas gifts or mani-pedis