topic Re: Equifax in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Equifax

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:40:46 GMT

I'm new to this site and apologize in advance if this issue has been addressed....anyway, my wife and I recently sold our home and are renting while we look for a new one. I pulled scores from all three reporting agencies and found that they all dropped because I did not have a mortgage. , Huh???? I don't get it. Also, Equifax has a score that is almost 40 points less than the other two. The only difference I can find is that (even though I have had credit since 1974) Equifax is only showing a 9 !/2 year credit history while the other two show around 19 years. Why the discrepancy? Equifax claims that there is nothing that can be done about it because my older accounts were removed because they were over 10 years old. My Equifax score dropped from around 710 to 668 after we sold the house. The other two dropped from around 730 to the low 700's. What is going on? Any input would be greatly appreciated....Thanks.

Re: Equifax

smallfry — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 01:09:25 GMT

All 3? Where did you get the scores from? Seems like you did not get FICO scores if you say you got all 3.

Re: Equifax

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:00:27 GMT

The three scores came from Equifax....their 3 in 1 deal. I should have clarified...Is this what you all call the FAKO score?

Re: Equifax

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:05:16 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
The three scores came from Equifax....their 3 in 1 deal. I should have clarified...Is this what you all call the FAKO score?

Hello and welcome.

No one has been able to buy their own Experian FICO score since February of 2009. Creditors can pull Experian and also there is a CU in Pennsylvania that supplies that information to it's members only. You can only buy true FICO scores at a few places. One place is here at myFICO. I suggest you do an internet search for "myfico discount codes" to save a little money. You can also purchase your Transunion score at www.transunioncs.com. At www.equifax.com EQ will still sell you an EQ FICO score but they make it very hard to find.

You probably bought the Equifax Complete product is that correct? None of those scores are FICO based scores unfortunately.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802, EQ - 10/10-813, TU - 10/10-774

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

Re: Equifax

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:14:34 GMT

Thanks for your help...In short..Yes, I bought the Equifax complete. The scores are all different.

Re: Equifax

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:22:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks for your help...In short..Yes, I bought the Equifax complete. The scores are all different.

It's not unusual for the scores to be different from each of the CRA's. They all use slightly different scoring formulas and it's very rare that the infomation used to calculate a score is exactly the same. My TU score is 39 points lower than my EQ with pretty much the same data.

But......the reports you got there can be relied on if that's any solace????

Re: Equifax

GregB — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:30:15 GMT

An account that has been closed will stay on your reports for about 10 more years. The oldest account and the average age is based upon accounts that are on your reports. This is why it is a good idea to keep any old accounts open. This usually means revolving accounts since an installment account is automatically paid off and closed when the last payment is made. I have found EQ to drop accounts first, followed by TU, followed by EX.

Re: Equifax

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:54:57 GMT

I really appreciate all the help...The thing that I really don't get is that all of the scores actually dropped after I sold the house. The "Equifax Complete" explanantion is that the score dropped because I don't have a mortgage. Kind of a "Catch 22". They just made it a little harder to get that mortgage.

Re: Equifax

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 03:36:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I really appreciate all the help...The thing that I really don't get is that all of the scores actually dropped after I sold the house. The "Equifax Complete" explanantion is that the score dropped because I don't have a mortgage. Kind of a "Catch 22". They just made it a little harder to get that mortgage.

Credit mix is a small (10%) part of scoring but it is still counted. The rationale is that showing responsible use of different kinds of credit i.e. credit cards, installment loans, mortgages makes one a better risk. Here is how scoring is broken down.

Re: Equifax

haulingthescoreup — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 04:56:32 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I really appreciate all the help...The thing that I really don't get is that all of the scores actually dropped after I sold the house. The "Equifax Complete" explanantion is that the score dropped because I don't have a mortgage. Kind of a "Catch 22". They just made it a little harder to get that mortgage.

The Equifax 3-in-1 scores are FAKO's, and so is their advice.

Your FICO scores might have gone up, down, or stayed the same. They don't consistently relate to changes in FAKO's.

Re: Equifax

haulingthescoreup — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:48:05 GMT

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I really appreciate all the help...The thing that I really don't get is that all of the scores actually dropped after I sold the house. The "Equifax Complete" explanantion is that the score dropped because I don't have a mortgage. Kind of a "Catch 22". They just made it a little harder to get that mortgage.
The Equifax 3-in-1 scores are FAKO's, and so is their advice.

Your FICO scores might have gone up, down, or stayed the same. They don't consistently relate to changes in FAKO's.

And now that I'm actually awake, let me add that if the mortgage was your only open installment account (mortgage, car loan, etc.), you might have lost some points when you paid it off for reducing your credit mix, as Marinevietvet wrote. Not everyone loses points, but plenty of people do. It depends on a lot of things that vary among us, like age of history and so forth. You're still getting some points for having an installment loan in your history, but there are fewer points for closed loans than for open.

But if you didn't know what your FICO's (as opposed to your FAKO's) were in the first place, you won't know whether and how much they changed if you pull them now, since you won't have any "before" numbers. Don't know if that makes any sense.

At any rate, if you pull your FICO's, or at least your EQ FICO, check the list of negatives on screen two, which shows what factors are hurting your scores the most. The one on top is the most damaging, the next one is next most damaging, and so forth. If there's anything on there that you can work on, such as high reported revolving credit usage, you can get your scores up before your next mortgage hunt. --hope that helps!

Re: Equifax

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:21:33 GMT

The Equifax scores use Vantage scoring it is a slightly different model than FICO. There are several scoring models but the most common are FICO and Vantage. Most use creditors use FICO. Vantage is not inaccurate just different. The difference is the percentage they give credit for the things that effect credit like ontime payments lenth of account history, ect.

Re: Equifax

Lel — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:28:19 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
The Equifax scores use Vantage scoring it is a slightly different model than FICO. There are several scoring models but the most common are FICO and Vantage. Most use creditors use FICO. Vantage is not inaccurate just different. The difference is the percentage they give credit for the things that effect credit like ontime payments lenth of account history, ect.

Actually, the scores that you get with the 3-in-1 product that's available on the Equifax website are not Vantage Scores. It's something they call their "Equifax Credit Score" which uses a scale that goes to 850. This scoring formula is applied to each credit bureau's report, so you get credit scores from each bureau. The Vantage Score goes to 990.