topic FAKO SCORES? in Rebuilding Your Credit

FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:33:35 GMT

Hi All!

I currently check my FAKO Scores monthly thru freescore.com for $15/month.

I saw an ad for creditreport.com for $20/month and updates scores 2x month.

Which one do you use?

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:08:02 GMT

I personally dont use either. FAKO's are not used by creditors and therefore are not of importance to me anymore. WHen I first started I didnt even realize my scores were fake until I came across MyFICO. I was mad! I felt decieved! LOL...but yea for that reason alone I dont even bother...

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:13:08 GMT

It's just a rough estimate of what your FICO may or may not be. I wouldn't live & breathe by either but use it as a guide of where you should go from there based on your CR.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

pizzadude — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:34:52 GMT

Unless you are car or house shopping, I wouldn't worry about your score that much. Buy a FICO score to get a baseline of where you stand, then focus on cleaning up your reports wherever possible, reducing utilization, and building positive payment history.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:48:51 GMT

Why not use Credit Karma and Credit Sesame? Those are both free and will get you FAKOs from TrasnUnion and Experian, respectively. If they are going to be fake scores, why not use the free services? Credit Karma lets you update your TransUnion as often as you want and Credit Sesame updates your Experian every month. I like those for frequent checks and I will use myFico less often for the real deal.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Datx — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:52:15 GMT

I use the USAA credit monitoring service which is about $12.95 a month. You can pull your report daily if you wanted to instead of monthly. I do agree that FAKO scroes does not mean much, but when I see a change in score, that really tells me that I need to look (in more detail than usual) for what changed on my report.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:51:59 GMT

@Datx wrote:
I use the USAA credit monitor service which is about $12.95 a month. You can pull your report daily if you wanted to instead of monthly. I do agree that FAKO scroes does not mean much, but when I see a change in score, that really tells me that I need to look (in more detail than usual) for what changed on my report.

I definitely wish I was a USAA customer so I could take advantage of that great deal. I just signed up this morning for EliminateIdentityTheft, which seems comparable at least!

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:52:09 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Why not use Credit Karma and Credit Sesame? Those are both free and will get you FAKOs from TrasnUnion and Experian, respectively. If they are going to be fake scores, why not use the free services? Credit Karma lets you update your TransUnion as often as you want and Credit Sesame updates your Experian every month. I like those for frequent checks and I will use myFico less often for the real deal.

I agree and love CreditKarma.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Datx — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:54:19 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Datx wrote:
I use the USAA credit monitor service which is about $12.95 a month. You can pull your report daily if you wanted to instead of monthly. I do agree that FAKO scroes does not mean much, but when I see a change in score, that really tells me that I need to look (in more detail than usual) for what changed on my report.
I definitely wish I was a USAA customer so I could take advantage of that great deal. I just signed up this morning for EliminateIdentityTheft, which seems comparable at least!

If you want to, you can always join USAA as a partial member and sign up for their Credit monitoring service. You do not have to apply for a check or savings account if you do not want to. Thats what I did, but eventually I did open up a savings and checking account with them a few months later.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:01:33 GMT

@Datx wrote:
If you want to, you can always join USAA as a partial member and sign up for their Credit monitoring service. You do not have to apply for a check or savings account if you do not want to. Thats what I did, but eventually I did open up a savings and checking account with them a few months later.

But don't you need to be a veteran or have some tie to the military or a current USAA member to join?

Re: FAKO SCORES?

p- — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:08:46 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

Which one do you use?

I also use the USAA product. I know it's a fako but I am still rebuilding and am focused more on eliminateing negative items and improving my report, so the scoring method is not as critical.

The truth is, most of us are here to either rebuild or to perfect, that is achieve the best FICO possible. If all the negatives are gone, payment history is perfect, and you are doing minor tweaks to figure out what utilization and mix you need to hit a perfect FICO, you definitely need the FICO scores. If you have a speific offer like a mortgage you want to qualify for and know the FICO cutoff, obviously you need that score. But if you are like me, and in rebuilding mode, what you really need is constant access to your report to track changes, and maybe a numeric bar to help show progress. The USAA product provides that for a fair to medium price.

As a rebuilder, the focus should be on eliminating negative items, building a history of paying on time, and managing utilization. At that point the score is just a neat gimmick to help motivate you to move forward.

That being said; if someone offers a 3-in-1 report and ficos score with unlimited pulls for ten bucks a month I'll jump on it in a heartbeat.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Datx — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:22:39 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Datx wrote:
If you want to, you can always join USAA as a partial member and sign up for their Credit monitoring service. You do not have to apply for a check or savings account if you do not want to. Thats what I did, but eventually I did open up a savings and checking account with them a few months later.
But don't you need to be a veteran or have some tie to the military or a current USAA member to join?

No, not at all. USAA is open to anyone for membership. But you will be a 'partial' member and will not get all the full benefits and previleges like full members (tied the military, etc) do.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:39:03 GMT

@Datx wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
But don't you need to be a veteran or have some tie to the military or a current USAA member to join?
No, not at all. USAA is open to anyone for membership. But you will be a 'partial' member and will not get all the full benefits and previleges like full members (tied the military, etc) do.

Thanks, I completely misunderstood this. I just signed up with EliminateIDTheft. USAA seems to be more commonly used, though. Is it better in any way anyone knows? They both seem to offer daily full credit reports and FAKOs and credit monitoring notifications. USAA is $12.25 and EliminateIDTheft is $12.95. They seem quite comparable. I can definitely change and go with USAA if most people seem to think it is better. Thanks again for pointing out my misconception.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Datx — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:34:58 GMT

jimbo831 wrote:

Thanks, I completely misunderstood this. I just signed up with EliminateIDTheft. USAA seems to be more commonly used, though. Is it better in any way anyone knows? They both seem to offer daily full credit reports and FAKOs and credit monitoring notifications. USAA is $12.25 and EliminateIDTheft is $12.95. They seem quite comparable. I can definitely change and go with USAA if most people seem to think it is better. Thanks again for pointing out my misconception.

EliminateIDTheft is also a good one. I have used both, and prefer USAA's credit monitoring service. With EliminateIDTheft, you are logging onto their website, which direct's you to MyPrivacyMatters (MPM) website and you are logging in again there. Like a double login almost. Also with EliminateIDTheft, you have to wait exactly 24 hours from the last time you pulled your report before you pull another one. If you forget that you pulled your report yesterday at 12pm noon, and you tried to pull now at 10am, you do not get a new report and then it kinda messes you up for the next day.

Re: FAKO SCORES?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:39:43 GMT

I only use my FAKO score to keep tabs on whether something is up or not. If they stay the same then I figure nothing has really changed on that report.

Not sure I'd pay too much money to get one, however, except just to see if there is a huge change at some point. if it drops 100 points like My EX FAKO did this month, then something is seriously amiss.