FICO vs. FAKO – Share your FAKO stories

[Kelsey_H]

Hey there forums members! Have you ever been impacted in your financial journey to obtain a new loan or credit card by relying on a “credit score” you thought was a FICO® Score?  We want to hear your story. Genuine FICO Scores are used in over 90% of lending decisions, while other “credit scores” (often referred to as FAKO scores) are rarely or never used by lenders to grant credit. Your story could help other consumers who find themselves in a similar situation. Have a FAKO story you’d like to share? Simply reply to this thread with your answers to the questions below.

1. Where did you get your FAKO score?
2. Which FAKO score did you receive and from which bureau?
3. Where did you get your genuine FICO® Score?
4. Which FICO® Score did you receive and from which bureau?
5. What type of loan/credit were you applying for? (type, rate, terms, etc. are all helpful)
6. Share your FAKO story (What was your first impression when you received your FAKO score? How did you figure out that it was not a FICO® Score or that it was different than a FICO® Score? How did the FAKO score impact your loan/credit experience? )

[Anonymous]

Mint.com's FAKO score has me at 646. They use Equifax which has me at 608 FICO.

Cap1's Credit Tracker has me at  629. That is based on Transunion which has me at 585 FICO.

Wisepiggy.com also uses Transunion and has me at 633.

Credit.com has me at 627. It's Experian (I think) which has me at 590 FICO.

Thankfully, I loooked at my true FICO scores before going off and trying to do much with credit. I will be needing a car soon and will wait until my scores get a little higher. 

Thanks MyFICO!

[Anonymous]

I checked my FAKO at CreditKarma before going in for a car purchase recently.  My TU socre there showed 698, I mentioned this to the FI guy before he ran my numbers.  He of course had to run them anyway, he came back with a TU score of 696 and he was impressed I was so close.  That was still a good enough score for him to bump me to the best possible lease terms as I was a repeat buyer there so it worked out great for me anyway.

I recently started using CCT to compare numbers and CK is farther off, but I've had several changes and new cards in my profile in the last month so they are all trying to keep up.  I'll know better in a month or so how they compare.

[Imperfectfuture]

Back in the old days, got credit scores from equifax and transunion as part of credit report purchase. They were.both higher than my fico score. Both FAKO's were in 600s. Both FICOs were in 500s. I applied for Barclays apple rewards and Discover it. Declined for both.

Since then, I obviously have accurate FICOs in the 700s. Having a secured installment loan helps cushion against minor fluctuations. I obviously overcame the past, and have received Discover IT and Barclays Aviator (and a few other cards on my side list). Of course, I used score watch while cleaning my reports. I then tend to purchase the 3b monitoring before applying for new credit. I use credit karma and credit.com to monitor for abrupt changes in credit, those are free.

For business scoring, I am left with buying the products offered by the CRA's themselves.

[1Rebuilding]

Well I'm in the low 700's on Credit Karma but only in the 530's-560's on Fico.  To me that is a HUGE difference.

[morgacj2004]

My scores have been fairly consistent but my wifes scores have been all over the place. Funny how we have almost identical bureaus.

Ex:  July, 2015    !. True Identity 701-EQ, 706-EX, 710-TU

                           2. CK- 690-TU, 690-EQ

                           3. CO-683

                           4. BC-710

                           5. Discover pulled - 696-Approved for IT card-$4500

                           6. VS pulled EQ-654-Approved for $500

                           7. AKUSA FCU-TU-712-Approved for 10k

                           8. EX showed 681 off of their site.

So you can see these scores are all over the place 654-712. . Equifax seems to have the greatest variance.

My scores ranged from 670-708. Lowest was from Barclays-670. Highest from True Identity 708. I was in the 690s for both CC that I was approved for.

[longtimelurker]

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@Kelsey_H wrote:

Hey there forums members! Have you ever been impacted in your financial journey to obtain a new loan or credit card by relying on a “credit score” you thought was a FICO® Score?  We want to hear your story. Genuine FICO Scores are used in over 90% of lending decisions, while other “credit scores” (often referred to as FAKO scores) are rarely or never used by lenders to grant credit. Your story could help other consumers who find themselves in a similar situation. Have a FAKO story you’d like to share? Simply reply to this thread with your answers to the questions below.

1. Where did you get your FAKO score?
2. Which FAKO score did you receive and from which bureau?
3. Where did you get your genuine FICO® Score?
4. Which FICO® Score did you receive and from which bureau?
5. What type of loan/credit were you applying for? (type, rate, terms, etc. are all helpful)
6. Share your FAKO story (What was your first impression when you received your FAKO score? How did you figure out that it was not a FICO® Score or that it was different than a FICO® Score? How did the FAKO score impact your loan/credit experience? )

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How about stories where the lender used a different FICO version than those that were available here?

[Anonymous]

In my case with credit karma 644 and with walmart fico 667. 

[Anonymous]

Ironically enough, my CK score and MyFico score are about the same (~5 pt difference)

[Anonymous]

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@Kelsey_H wrote:

1. Where did you get your FAKO score? Capital One and credit karma
2. Which FAKO score did you receive and from which bureau? Transunion
3. Where did you get your genuine FICO® Score? Discover, Barclay, and Myfico
4. Which FICO® Score did you receive and from which bureau? Discover/Barclay : Transunion,  Myfico : all 3
5. What type of loan/credit were you applying for? (type, rate, terms, etc. are all helpful) Credit Cards
6. Share your FAKO story (What was your first impression when you received your FAKO score? How did you figure out that it was not a FICO® Score or that it was different than a FICO® Score? How did the FAKO score impact your loan/credit experience? ) When Capital one's score didn't match with Discover's score. Once I realized it was Fako score, I just don't bother with it anymore.

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