topic New Guy With Score Question in Understanding FICO® Scoring

New Guy With Score Question

UPSGregg — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:00:57 GMT

I just signed up with this site recently and have been lurking around. Pretty cool stuff here! I pulled my credit report (free) just a few weeks ago and my Experian score was 744. I signed up for CreditCheck Monitoring through USAA Bank a few minutes ago and my score is now 774! I've been reading up on how credit scores are calculated and thought that I kind of understand the game but the 30 point increase in just a few weeks has me a bit puzzled. No serious changes in my credit have happened in only a few weeks. I've paid off the balances on my Amex Zync card like I always have and I charged a few things on a brand new Amex card that I got through USAA. I don't see anything that could raise my score 30 points though. My question is..... Is this normal?

Re: New Guy With Score Question

Scamp — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:52:10 GMT

@UPSGregg wrote:
I just signed up with this site recently and have been lurking around. Pretty cool stuff here! I pulled my credit report (free) just a few weeks ago and my Experian score was 744. I signed up for CreditCheck Monitoring through USAA Bank a few minutes ago and my score is now 774! I've been reading up on how credit scores are calculated and thought that I kind of understand the game but the 30 point increase in just a few weeks has me a bit puzzled. No serious changes in my credit have happened in only a few weeks. I've paid off the balances on my Amex Zync card like I always have and I charged a few things on a brand new Amex card that I got through USAA. I don't see anything that could raise my score 30 points though. My question is..... Is this normal?

Welcome to the forums!

The scores you've received so far are not FICO scores, but credit scores we refer to as FAKOs. Their scoring criteria and algorithms are different from those used to calculate FICO scores, so it may well be that the changes to those scores would be considered "normal" for them, although zero balances reporting to the CRAs, generally speaking, should result in an increase in your FICO scores as well.

If you haven't done so already, please read Son of Credit Scoring 101, which will give you a great deal of vital background information on FICO scoring, where you can obtain your FICO scores, and more.

Hope this gives you a good start, and welcome again!

Re: New Guy With Score Question

UPSGregg — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:57:34 GMT

I looked around more on CreditCheck Monitoring and found out it was indeed a "FACO". The previous pull was through Amex. They pull a credit score along with a report once a year for free. I'm going to see if it's actually a FICO or another FACO now. Bummer! The Amex score was a FACO score too!

Re: New Guy With Score Question

fused — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:04:55 GMT

Its definitely a FAKO Score.

Re: New Guy With Score Question

RobertEG — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:46:30 GMT

If the score is not branded with the FICO(R) trademark, it is not a FICO score.