topic Re: Transunion/True Credit score discrepancy? in General Credit Topics

Transunion/True Credit score discrepancy?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:04:53 GMT

I just applied for an Apple card and was denied. The letter stated that my score was 631. I know they pulled TU. I have True Credit / Transunion monitoring and just updated my scores today. It states that my score is 674. We also JUST bought a house (closed friday!) and know where our scores have been religiously for the last several months.

Why....does Apple say my score is 631?

Re: Transunion/True Credit score discrepancy?

MarineVietVet — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:32:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I just applied for an Apple card and was denied. The letter stated that my score was 631. I know they pulled TU. I have True Credit / Transunion monitoring and just updated my scores today. It states that my score is 674. We also JUST bought a house (closed friday!) and know where our scores have been religiously for the last several months.

Why....does Apple say my score is 631?

Hi there.

Those scores sold by TrueCredit are not FICO scores. These "scores" are what we call FAKO (non- FICO) scores. They are based on different scoring formulas than FICO and can be much higher or much lower than your actual FICO scores and therefore cannot be relied on for accuracy. I believe that these are TC scores what are called "Plus" scores and no lender uses them to make decisions. In fact there is no 3 in 1 service that sells FICO's at this time as far as I know.

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 (PSECU) 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.

At one time you could also purchase your Transunion score at transunioncs.com but that site seems to have stopped doing that. Wal Mart now offers a TU score to those who have their store card and the Discover version.

Equifax will still sell you a FICO score but you have to look very hard to find it. You can get to it here: www.equifax.com/web-myfico-products/

The TU score Apple provided to you is most likely an accurate TU FICO, In the letter did it say what type of TU they used? Did it say something like "Transunion 98 or Transunion 04?

From a BK years ago to: EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

Re: Transunion/True Credit score discrepancy?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:43:35 GMT

My browser crashed when I tried to print the online denial letter.

True Credit lists my scores at TU-674, EX-672, EQ-667 ... our lender mid-score was 667. So..in general I know these scores are accurate. I just bought the Myfico Monitoring and got my TU score, which also says 631. I know exactly what the problem is....there is an old Sears card that was included in BK, not to mention I was only an auth user on (joint with ex) that is showing ONLY on TU as being 120+ and says closed and owing. I disputed this with Citi directly 1.5 months ago while applying for our mortgage. It reports correctly on the other bureaus.

I'm going to try calling the Barkleys backdoor number tomorrow to see if I can still get the credit. It says authorized user, and the bankruptcy shows on the report. I've had perfect credit since the BK (5/2008), got 2 car loans, just bought a house, 2 credit cards that are paid off every month. So annoyed right now at True Credit for selling me LIES for the last 4 months. I'll be using the Myfico monitoring from now on.

Re: Transunion/True Credit score discrepancy?

MarineVietVet — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:19:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My browser crashed when I tried to print the online denial letter.

True Credit lists my scores at TU-674, EX-672, EQ-667 ... our lender mid-score was 667. So..in general I know these scores are accurate. I just bought the Myfico Monitoring and got my TU score, which also says 631. I know exactly what the problem is....there is an old Sears card that was included in BK, not to mention I was only an auth user on (joint with ex) that is showing ONLY on TU as being 120+ and says closed and owing. I disputed this with Citi directly 1.5 months ago while applying for our mortgage. It reports correctly on the other bureaus.

I'm going to try calling the Barkleys backdoor number tomorrow to see if I can still get the credit. It says authorized user, and the bankruptcy shows on the report. I've had perfect credit since the BK (5/2008), got 2 car loans, just bought a house, 2 credit cards that are paid off every month. So annoyed right now at True Credit for selling me LIES for the last 4 months. I'll be using the Myfico monitoring from now on.

It's pure chance and mere coincidence that the TC scores were close to the lender pull. It's an exercise in futility to try and compare and/or correlate FAKO's to your FICO scores.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

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

Re: Transunion/True Credit score discrepancy?

Walt_K — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:56:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My browser crashed when I tried to print the online denial letter.

True Credit lists my scores at TU-674, EX-672, EQ-667 ... our lender mid-score was 667. So..in general I know these scores are accurate. I just bought the Myfico Monitoring and got my TU score, which also says 631. I know exactly what the problem is....there is an old Sears card that was included in BK, not to mention I was only an auth user on (joint with ex) that is showing ONLY on TU as being 120+ and says closed and owing. I disputed this with Citi directly 1.5 months ago while applying for our mortgage. It reports correctly on the other bureaus.

I'm going to try calling the Barkleys backdoor number tomorrow to see if I can still get the credit. It says authorized user, and the bankruptcy shows on the report. I've had perfect credit since the BK (5/2008), got 2 car loans, just bought a house, 2 credit cards that are paid off every month. So annoyed right now at True Credit for selling me LIES for the last 4 months. I'll be using the Myfico monitoring from now on.

Just so you don't end up with another rude surprise down the line, there are also different versions of FICO scores. The TU score you get here is version TU98. It is probably much better than getting a FAKO score, but it may not be the version of TU FICO that a lender uses. For example, I believe that many (most?) mortgage lenders have migrated to a newer version TU04. I've seen threads with people reporting 40-60 point differences in their TU04 and TU98 scores.

The EQ score that you get here seems to be the most widely used version of an EQ FICO.