topic Re: Why did I waste my money? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Why did I waste my money?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:14:57 GMT

I just purchased the $29.99 fico package, the scores came up and MAGIC they are pretty high! When I click into them it says "Scores most mortgage lenders use" Which is 8.0. I get excited because the lower scores are listed as "Older". No such luck, I contacted mortgage companies and looked online to find out NOBODY USES THESE SCORES. So what is the point of showing them and falsely saying that this is the most commonly used score when on a seperate myfico forum it says they are not used? My score is 100 points lower with the "Old" scores and I went from getting a mortgage to not coming close. Thanks Myfico.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:32:58 GMT

Hopefully, you arent the kind of person that comes on to a forum to post an uninformed rant and then never comes back to read responses. A little elbow grease and a good attitude goes a long way.

So to answer your question, you spent your money to become better informed. The people on this forum are very helpful and will help you get your mortgage scores cleaned up if you ask for help and heed the advice. But you need to provide enough information for the nice people here to help you.

So, in the interest of trying to help, please post your actual scores for FICO 08 for all three bureaus as well as the mortgage based scores provided commonly known as EQ 04, TU 04 and EX 98. How many credit cards do you have and what type? What are the limits? What are your balances? How old is your oldest account? What is your average age of accounts? Do you have any negative information in your account? If so, what type?

Providing the above will help the forum members help you.

The first bit of advice inevitably will be to get your utilization optimized for mortgage scores, there are plenty of threads on this topic and a couple of opinions, but no one can argue with getting your total utilization down to 10% of credit limits across the board. And few will argue with getting all of your balances onto one card and getting that down to 10% of that card's individual credit limit when looking to increase your mortgage scores.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 13:11:27 GMT

I am not the type of person to post an uniformed rant but you appear to be a person to go on a long rant about something that has nothing to do with my question. I simply wanted an answer to why this site posts scores that nobody uses. They give people a false sense of their credit worhiness and likely people are applying for mortgages and other things under false pretenses. You do not need to know anything about my personal scores or finances. I was requesting a simple answer, Why does this site list scores that are not used by anyone? Look it up google myfico 8 scores for mortgages. One of the first things that comes up is "Myfico rolls out 8 and nobody uses it". So unless you know of a mortgage company that uses this score or can provide the answer you can save yourself from thinking you are looking educated by diverting one question into another answer that doesn't serve anyone.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 13:26:51 GMT

Simple answer to your simple question...

The FICO 08 scores are provided as well as the mortage, auto and bankcard scores for $29.99.

From the dashboard, just below the 3 big circles with your FICO 08 scores in them, there is a link in blue

"View additional FICO Score versions used in mortgage, auto and bankcard decisions"

On that page look for the score that says "MOST COMMONLY USED IN MORTGAGE LENDING"

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Involver — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 13:43:13 GMT

So its MyFICO's fault that you don't qualify for a mortgage?

Odd.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

tufa4311 — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 15:01:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hopefully, you arent the kind of person that comes on to a forum to post an uninformed rant and then never comes back to read responses. A little elbow grease and a good attitude goes a long way.

So to answer your question, you spent your money to become better informed. The people on this forum are very helpful and will help you get your mortgage scores cleaned up if you ask for help and heed the advice. But you need to provide enough information for the nice people here to help you.

So, in the interest of trying to help, please post your actual scores for FICO 08 for all three bureaus as well as the mortgage based scores provided commonly known as EQ 04, TU 04 and EX 98. How many credit cards do you have and what type? What are the limits? What are your balances? How old is your oldest account? What is your average age of accounts? Do you have any negative information in your account? If so, what type?

Providing the above will help the forum members help you.

The first bit of advice inevitably will be to get your utilization optimized for mortgage scores, there are plenty of threads on this topic and a couple of opinions, but no one can argue with getting your total utilization down to 10% of credit limits across the board. And few will argue with getting all of your balances onto one card and getting that down to 10% of that card's individual credit limit when looking to increase your mortgage scores.

I think you're missing the point. The OP is not asking how to bring his credit score up, although this may be a subject in the future, the OP is clearly asking why the score he got here does not match with the score his mortgage broker pulled. FICO says 80% of mortgage lenders use the scores on this site yet this doesn't seem to be the case with the OP's lenders' pull.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

NRB525 — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 15:37:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I just purchased the $29.99 fico package, the scores came up and MAGIC they are pretty high! When I click into them it says "Scores most mortgage lenders use" Which is 8.0. I get excited because the lower scores are listed as "Older". No such luck, I contacted mortgage companies and looked online to find out NOBODY USES THESE SCORES. So what is the point of showing them and falsely saying that this is the most commonly used score when on a seperate myfico forum it says they are not used? My score is 100 points lower with the "Old" scores and I went from getting a mortgage to not coming close. Thanks Myfico.

When you talked with the mortgage companies, did they identify what the scoring tool is that they do use? Which mortgage companies did you contact?

There is a wide range of scores provided in the MyFICO package you bought.

And as to personal information, we are all anonymous here, at the end of the day. Posting the names of cards you have, limits, balances, information about what is in your credit profile isn't to include any really personally identifiabie information. Without the understanding of what is in your file, however, the posters here (who know quite a lot about how credit works) can't really give you any advice beyond the basic "always pay on time" platitudes.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 15:42:15 GMT

Thank you Tufa,

Apparently not the smartest bunch of people replying on here. No I don't blame Myfico for not getting a mortgage. I blame myfico for listing on my dashboard 3 different credit bureu's scores and not one of them is close to anything a lender looks at. The point of this service is so one knows where their credit is so they can decide if they want to risk a hard inquiry and be approved for a loan or if they need to spend more time working on their credit. So, when I pop open my Myfico and the scores are 100 points off from what any lender will look at it is pointless. Why do I need to pay them 29.99 a month for fake scores when I can get that from Credit Karma for free?

Also, they list this higher, greater score as the most commonly used score, when you look it up there is not any lender (that I can find) that even uses these scores. I don't know why you all are questioning me, there is an article in the wall street journal asking the same question as my, why does Myfico list these scores as your main score when no lenders even look at them?

There are even stories of class action lawsuits because of the wording MYfico uses on the "8" report because people took Myfico's word that those were the most commonly used scores and damaged their credit by getting numerous lenders to pull reports to try and find out why the scores weren't matching.

On top of that, Myfico is now selling their services to companies like Discover card and Discover now gives you your "Myfico Score" based off of the algorythym that nobody uses so it is passing on a fake sense of credit worthiness to people with credit cards.

No need for anyone to reply, I understand the type of people I am working with on here. Thanks anyway, but seriously if anyone knows a lender that actually uses this "most commonly used score" that would help me a lot. Thanks!

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 16:35:32 GMT

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/The-many-flavors-of-FICO-Editions-versions-and-variations/td-p/1197617

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Mortgage-Fico-Score-VS-Fico-08/m-p/3756044/highlight/true#M87950

http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/FICO-Score-8.aspx

http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/FICO-Score-Versions.aspx

Re: Why did I waste my money?

NRB525 — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 15:58:27 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you Tufa,

Apparently not the smartest bunch of people replying on here. No I don't blame Myfico for not getting a mortgage. I blame myfico for listing on my dashboard 3 different credit bureu's scores and not one of them is close to anything a lender looks at. The point of this service is so one knows where their credit is so they can decide if they want to risk a hard inquiry and be approved for a loan or if they need to spend more time working on their credit. So, when I pop open my Myfico and the scores are 100 points off from what any lender will look at it is pointless. Why do I need to pay them 29.99 a month for fake scores when I can get that from Credit Karma for free?
Also, they list this higher, greater score as the most commonly used score, when you look it up there is not any lender (that I can find) that even uses these scores. I don't know why you all are questioning me, there is an article in the wall street journal asking the same question as my, why does Myfico list these scores as your main score when no lenders even look at them?
There are even stories of class action lawsuits because of the wording MYfico uses on the "8" report because people took Myfico's word that those were the most commonly used scores and damaged their credit by getting numerous lenders to pull reports to try and find out why the scores weren't matching.
On top of that, Myfico is now selling their services to companies like Discover card and Discover now gives you your "Myfico Score" based off of the algorythym that nobody uses so it is passing on a fake sense of credit worthiness to people with credit cards.
No need for anyone to reply, I understand the type of people I am working with on here. Thanks anyway, but seriously if anyone knows a lender that actually uses this "most commonly used score" that would help me a lot. Thanks!

Great way to win friends.

The FICO 8 score you are referring to is used by credit card companies. When I get my Discover and Slate reports of two different buereaus, they match each month to the Alert scores I get from MyFICO. When I get a hard pull on a credit card app over the last year, that bureau MyFICO alerted score is the same as the FICO score I get from the Reasons Letter they send me.

It is commonly known here that mortgage scores are different. Three posts in, you may not realize that yet.

You didn't follow the directions and look deeper into your provided list of FICO scores here, and didn't answer my question of who you talked to and what scores they DID say they used.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 16:07:57 GMT

No I don't blame Myfico for not getting a mortgage. I blame myfico for listing on my dashboard 3 different credit bureu's scores and not one of them is close to anything a lender looks at.

Also on the dashboard

Taking the most basic of advice here, this is what happened to my "mortgage scores" in the first month reading here, by moving my utilization to a single card and getting it down to 10% (it was less than 20% previously). You can fix this with a little help and work.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 16:26:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I am not the type of person to post an uniformed rant but you appear to be a person to go on a long rant about something that has nothing to do with my question. I simply wanted an answer to why this site posts scores that nobody uses. They give people a false sense of their credit worhiness and likely people are applying for mortgages and other things under false pretenses. You do not need to know anything about my personal scores or finances. I was requesting a simple answer, Why does this site list scores that are not used by anyone? Look it up google myfico 8 scores for mortgages. One of the first things that comes up is "Myfico rolls out 8 and nobody uses it". So unless you know of a mortgage company that uses this score or can provide the answer you can save yourself from thinking you are looking educated by diverting one question into another answer that doesn't serve anyone.

The simple answer is that it doesn't. The scores posted are, indeed, the ones used by most grantors of credit. The fact that your particular mortgage lender may not have used the scores provided here, doesn't negate that reality.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

Thomas_Thumb — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 19:43:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I am not the type of person to post an uniformed rant but you appear to be a person to go on a long rant about something that has nothing to do with my question. I simply wanted an answer to why this site posts scores that nobody uses. They give people a false sense of their credit worhiness and likely people are applying for mortgages and other things under false pretenses. One of the first things that comes up is "Myfico rolls out 8 and nobody uses it".

The scores referenced by various types of lenders are clearly identified in the Fico 3B report and various articles available on myFICO and elsewhere . Fico 8 IS widely used by credit card issuers and other creditors. However, Fico 8 IS NOT generally used by mortgage lenders. MyFICO indicates that mortgage lenders use Fico 4 scores from EQ and TU (the EQ score is often referred to as Beacon score 5 or Fico score 5 and the TU is referred to as Fico score 4 ... BOTH OF THESE ARE BASED ON THE FICO 4 MODEL) and the Fico 98 model (called Fico score 2) from EX.

As an FYI, my Fico 8 scores on my 3B report were 20 to 54 points higher than my Fico 4 scores. Fico 4 certainly appears to be more sensitive to how many credit cards show a balance, recent inquiries and credit utilization than Fico 8. Unfortunately, you can do nothing about inquiries to enhance your score. However: if you can:

1) limit # cards used to one credit card and a charge card (if you have one)

2) Keep utilization on the one CC under 30% and overall utilization under 20% (under 10% overall is ideal but 20% should be fine)

your Fico 4 score could see a 20 point jump.

Re: Why did I waste my money?

MarineVietVet — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 19:56:34 GMT

This thread started off poorly and never improved.

Time to move on.