topic Here's the link.... in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Difference in Scores

hanify2001 — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 20:20:52 GMT

I'm new here so this may have already been covered. My apologies if so. The July issue of Consumer Reports had an article on the value of comsumer purchased credit scores. The thing that really caught my attention was that Fair Issac has 49 different scores availble to lenders but only two available to consumers. Why is this and how represenative is the FICO score I purchase from Fair Issac? If my FICO from Equifax is say 680 roughly how much variance will there be from the other 47 FICO scores made available to lenders?

Re: Consumer reports article

pizzadude — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 00:24:57 GMT

@hanify2001 wrote:
I'm new here so this may have already been covered. My apologies if so. The July issue of Consumer Reports had an article on the value of comsumer purchased credit scores. The thing that really caught my attention was that Fair Issac has 49 different scores availble to lenders but only two available to consumers. Why is this and how represenative is the FICO score I purchase from Fair Issac? If my FICO from Equifax is say 680 roughly how much variance will there be from the other 47 FICO scores made available to lenders?

Welcome to the forums !

You're right that there are many different FICO scores available to lenders, which we can't purchase. Many of these are industry specific, such as bank card enhanced, Auto enhanced, etc... they weigh certain accounts more heavily based on the model. Some of them have a max score range which is higher than 850.

As consumers we can only purchase the Classic FICO score ~ other specality scores just aren't available to us.

Re: Consumer reports article

hanify2001 — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 03:21:21 GMT

Thanks for the quick reply. What then, is the "Classic FICO" score? An average of the others? How does it relate to the "specialty scores"? I get the feeling here that my $14.95/mo is not connected to the reality of FICO based lending. Is the "Classic" a benchmark that relates with some accuracy to the other speciality scores? If so how? If not, what is its real value?

Re: Consumer reports article

pizzadude — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 01:11:32 GMT

@hanify2001 wrote:
Thanks for the quick reply. What then, is the "Classic FICO" score? An average of the others? How does it relate to the "specialty scores"? I get the feeling here that my $14.95/mo is not connected to the reality of FICO based lending. Is the "Classic" a benchmark that relates with some accuracy to the other speciality scores? If so how? If not, what is its real value?

No, it's not a blending or average of the others. The Classic score is just the basic FICO score, it's what MyFICO sells.

Most mortage lenders pull the classic FICO 04 score ~ the Equifax score sold here is the FICO 08 score model and will not generally match up with mortgage pulls.

Many auto & CC lenders will use the Auto enhanced or Bankcard enhanced scores.

Re: Consumer reports article

hanify2001 — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 03:49:28 GMT

So when you say "enhanced" do you mean more weight put on the performance of an auto loan or CC when it's scored? Less weight? What other factors? Can you give me an idea of the breadth of the FICO scores from 1 to 49?

Re: Consumer reports article

pizzadude — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 03:57:35 GMT

@hanify2001 wrote:
So when you say "enhanced" do you mean more weight put on the performance of an auto loan or CC when it's scored? Less weight? What other factors? Can you give me an idea of the breadth of the FICO scores from 1 to 49?

That's correct ~ for example a FICO auto enhanced score places more weight on auto loans & leases. Bankcard enhanced FICO scores place more weight on Credit Card accounts.

Here's a link helps explain Auto enhanced scoring: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Auto-Loans/FICO-Auto-Enhanced-Scores/td-p/228198

Re: Consumer reports article

hanify2001 — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 04:17:55 GMT

Then, in determining an auto enhanced score, for example, is the information that is in my credit report that I can pull on this site the same info that will be used to calculate my "auto enhanced" score?

Re: Consumer reports article

pizzadude — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 04:25:28 GMT

@hanify2001 wrote:
Then, in determining an auto enhanced score, for example, is the information that is in my credit report that I can pull on this site the same info that will be used to calculate my "auto enhanced" score?

Yes, the information on your credit reports, pulled either from this site ( or from each CRA ) is used to calculate your FICO score.

Re: Consumer reports article

hanify2001 — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 04:36:54 GMT

Then why are there 49 different FICO scores available to various lenders and, I assume, other agencies? Has each group paid Fair Issac to develop an algorithim to suit their needs? How was the "classic" score determinined? It's getting late Pizza Dude,and I appreciate you responses, but I'm left with the feeling I know a whole lot less about the credit score business than I thought I did.

Re: Consumer reports article

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 15:33:09 GMT

Well there are so many score variations available because some statistics guru has convinced everyone that by focusing more on Factor K when deciding whether to approve credit for Product Y that you can get a X% lesser default rate. Seriously it's simply supply and demand. If Fair Isaac could sell 1275 different score reports at a cost to enable profit then they would. And someone on this board would be willing to pay $19.95 for each of them if they were publicly available.

Re: Consumer reports article

pizzadude — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 18:37:32 GMT

+1. There are many variations of FICO scores available to lenders, such as FICO Revenue Score, FICO Bankruptcy Risk Score, in addition to the FICO classic and industry models. And of course each CRA sells their own Non-FICO ( FAKO ) scores.

If you are interested in reading more about these, take a look at this link from TU: http://www.transunion.com/docs/rev/business/financialservices/FS_ModelsOverview.pdf

Re: Consumer reports article

Mike_C — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:49:18 GMT

Hello and welcome to the myFICO® Forums. You bring up an important question that we would like to address.

I had a chance to interact with Tom Quinn (Vice President of Business Development for myFICO) regarding your question. He shared that while it is true there are multiple versions of the FICO® Score, including versions for different types of credit products, these versions are all fundamentally based on the same underlying mathematical blueprint. As such, consumers with higher FICO scores on version “A” will likely see a high score on the other versions. Similarly, consumers with lower scores on version “A” will likely get a low score on the other versions.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about that when you buy your FICO Score. You will get the main, general-purpose FICO Score. These are the scores most widely used by lenders. All of the FICO Score variations use similar underlying logic and algorithms, so even if lenders are using a different variation, it will likely be in the same ballpark as the one you purchased. And the steps you take to improve your score will work across all the FICO Score variations.

You can read more about this topic in his blog “Which Credit Score is the Right One?".

Hope this helps, and thank you for participating in the Forums.

Re: Consumer reports article

tonyjones — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 05:14:00 GMT

@Mike_C wrote:
Hello and welcome to the myFICO® Forums. You bring up an important question that we would like to address.

I had a chance to interact with Tom Quinn (Vice President of Business Development for myFICO) regarding your question. He shared that while it is true there are multiple versions of the FICO® Score, including versions for different types of credit products, these versions are all fundamentally based on the same underlying mathematical blueprint. As such, consumers with higher FICO scores on version “A” will likely see a high score on the other versions. Similarly, consumers with lower scores on version “A” will likely get a low score on the other versions.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about that when you buy your FICO Score. You will get the main, general-purpose FICO Score. These are the scores most widely used by lenders. All of the FICO Score variations use similar underlying logic and algorithms, so even if lenders are using a different variation, it will likely be in the same ballpark as the one you purchased. And the steps you take to improve your score will work across all the FICO Score variations.

You can read more about this topic in his blog “Which Credit Score is the Right One?".

Hope this helps, and thank you for participating in the Forums.

If this is true then how come myFico (TU) score is 690 but Walmart (TU) score is 600? 90 points discrepancy is a lot!

Re: Consumer reports article

Mike_C — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:44:32 GMT

@tonyjones wrote:

Mike_C wrote:

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about that when you buy your FICO Score. You will get the main, general-purpose FICO Score. These are the scores most widely used by lenders. All of the FICO Score variations use similar underlying logic and algorithms, so even if lenders are using a different variation, it will likely be in the same ballpark as the one you purchased. And the steps you take to improve your score will work across all the FICO Score variations.

If this is true then how come myFico (TU) score is 690 but Walmart (TU) score is 600? 90 points discrepancy is a lot!

Here's the link....

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:52:32 GMT

http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/28/pf/fico-credit-scores/index.html

Re: Here's the link....

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 22:39:16 GMT

I got an Equifax Risk Score directly from Equifax today. How different should it be, if at all from the myfico score. The score I got is 729, But myifco scorewatch shows 679. Is it probably because myfico hasnt updated?

Re: Here's the link....

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 22:52:11 GMT

The score you got from EQ is a FAKO, the one from myFICO is a FICO. No, it isn't because myFICO hasn't updated. It is because the two scores are calculated entirely different, using different factors etc.

Re: Here's the link....

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 23:18:20 GMT

thanks guinness

Re: Here's the link....

kkapdolee — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 01:13:54 GMT

My understanding is that the FICO scores sold on this website are the following.

EQ FICO 08

EX FICO 08

TU FICO 08

Are these 3 the only "Classic" FICO scores or are there actually 9? As in FICO 08, 04, and 08 for each of the three CRAs?

Re: Here's the link....

mongstradamus — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 01:15:11 GMT

@kkapdolee wrote:
My understanding is that the FICO scores sold on this website are the following.

EQ FICO 08
EX FICO 08
TU FICO 08

Are these 3 the only "Classic" FICO scores or are there actually 9? As in FICO 08, 08, and 08 for each of the three CRAs?

I thought there was somethng like 49 different versions of FICO score?