topic Which FICO score is "best"? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Which FICO score is "best"?

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:57:09 GMT

FICO is running a 20% off sale today on credit scores. I'm willing to spend $15.95 to get one of my FICO scores, but not $48 to get all three.

So which FICO score is "best"? By that I mean, which of the three credit bureaus has the biggest market? I figure that if there's one credit bureau that's "bigger" than the other two, a lender is more likely to request a FICO score from that bureau than the others. Hence, that's the FICO score I should get.

If you had to buy a FICO score from only one credit bureau, which would it be?

Re: Which FICO score is "best"?

azguy13 — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 14:01:24 GMT

There is no correct answer to this question. The best I can give you is that of you are planning on app'ing for something anytime soon, look up which CRA they full and then buy that one.

You can google the credit pull database and go from there.

Re: Which FICO score is "best"?

lg8302ch — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 14:04:34 GMT

For me it is EX, then EQ and a very few TU but I think this is YMMV depending on lender and location

Re: Which FICO score is "best"?

thom02099 — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 16:04:09 GMT

@azguy13 wrote:
There is no correct answer to this question. The best I can give you is that of you are planning on app'ing for something anytime soon, look up which CRA they full and then buy that one.

You can google the credit pull database and go from there.

+1 !

The googled "credit pulls database" from the site of which we may not speak is an excellent place to start. You can choose the CRA you want to check, and it will list all of the cards/issuers that have utilised that CRA by the sizeable database clientele.

www.whogavemecredit.com is another good source of reported CRA usage. There you can search by a variety of criteria.

Keep in mind that, of the various reports you'll get here, the Equifax report is the one that most lenders also use, being the Beacon 5.0 model.

Transunion here is the TU98 model, a very old one that's not used by many, if any, lenders; they use the TU04 model the most.

Experian here is the EX08 model, again not used by a majority of lenders, who use the EX04 model. However, anecdotally it's reported that AMEX does use the EX08 model along with their own internal scoring.

And lastly, these are the ones that are readily available to consumers to peruse. Keep in mind that there are many different scoring models, depending on the industry utilising them.