FICO vs. FAKO – Share your FAKO stories

[sarge12]

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@clipperskipper wrote:

When first using credit Karma some six years ago, I posted here, as I too was seeing Fico scores that were way off.

In the past year, they seem to be pretty close, as at CK both TU, and EQ are the same as Credit Sesame, and a recent mortgage pull.

Let me say that carrying any plastic at all,  is a huge dent on your Fico score. Hard inquiries are 16 points each, so try to limit these.

TU-816 06-01

EQ-816 06-01

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First of all both CK and credit sesame are VS 3.0 scores which are used by almost no lenders, so of course they should be the same...they use the same model, and neither is the widely used scores like fico 08. Second...where did you get the idea that carrying any plastic at all is a huge dent on your score? That is not at all true...yes a hard pull is a ding on a score for a year, but it is not 16 points and the ding is temporary. The best scores are acheived by the responsible management of several types of credit, including credit cards. In order to get very high credit scores you actually need plastic, but need to manage it well and keep the utilization down...best to just always PIF! Others can chime in, but I have to respectfully disagree with you.

[clipperskipper]

There's a good explanation of the differences over on credit.com. As for the points I mentioned, 16 was 

the (temporary) hit on a hard inquiry. There's also a good explanation of deduplication. FICO uses a 45-day span to deduplicate your credit inquiries. VantageScore limits its focus to only a 14-day range. VantageScore also looks at multiple hard inquiries for all types of credit, including credit cards. FICO considers only mortgages, auto loans, and student loans.

Last month I ran up a bunch of plastic, well I finally broke down and purchased a very nice Smart tv, and was using 5% of my available credit, 8 point hit. I paid the balance when the invoice arrived, and got the 8 points back. 

I understand the mix aspect, however I don't have any auto, or student, or other types of loans.

[jl4]

I've bascially stopped caring about what CK tells me using their FAKO scores, though I still find it helpful for at-a-glance reviews. 

My scores are current down below and CK has them at TU 655 and EQ 651. A cycle and change ago I loaded up one of my cards to it's limit and mistimed the pay-down so it reported with at 90-something percent util. Since it was a smaller card ($2k limit), it only bumped my collective util to the high teens, maybe 19% or so, up from 15%, but to CK that didn't matter. My TU FAKO went from 702 to 641. Now that the new balance is reporting and it's back down to its original level, my score still hasn't recovered. My EQ FAKO suffered even worse dropping from 714 to a low of 639 before landing where it's at, now. 

All the while over in FICO Land, I saw a ~15 point drop across the board that has since fully recovered (and then some). 🙈

[Anonymous]

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@Gonzozap

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I actually track a few FAKOs out of curiosity.  And CK, though fake, can serve a purpose.  It's not totally useless.

I agree 100%. Although I take the credit scores with a grain of salt, they are quick to alert of changes to TU and EQ reports. Some people can't afford the monthly MyFico fees and something is better than nothing.

[Anonymous]

The score used for your car purchase is likely the auto specific FICO score, which will also not likely match your overall FICO 8 score either. CL shows Vantage 3.0 scores, not FICO.

[Anonymous]

i bank with chase.. had me at like 610 with transunion, and fico has me at 660. Since they use a fako score.. i cant qualify with any of their products yet.. Even though if they changed their Scoring to Fico i would. Crazy how there is a 50 point difference.

[sarge12]

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@Anonymous wrote:
i bank with chase.. had me at like 610 with transunion, and fico has me at 660. Since they use a fako score.. i cant qualify with any of their products yet.. Even though if they changed their Scoring to Fico i would. Crazy how there is a 50 point difference.

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Do not assume that just because the VS3.0 score is supplied to chase customers by chase, that they are using that score to make approval decisions. They are using some form of Fico for their actual lending decisions like everyone else. No major banks or credit cards use the VS3.0 score, often referred to as faco score, to make lending decisions, that I know of. I have heard it is used by the rental industry.

[sarahkw]

Hopefully I'm in the right place... 

I'm working on getting a relatively small line of credit to open a business. My credit reports have recently been cleaned up, my utilization is under 30%, and I have one collection account being disputed - Sprint paid my Verizon contract out, Verizon didn't do - something? - and now I'm in collections for a bill marked as paid. We're working on that and have a lot of documentation to back it up, so hopefully it irons out soon. 

MyFico and Experian both report my Fico8 EX as 715. The other two are 701. When the bank pulled my Fico8 from Experian yesterday, it came back at 649. The bank is great and we're working out what we can do, but how frustating. 

Really just venting, but I did perhaps wrongly assume the Fico8 from Experian and here would be more accurate than, say, my Capital One monitoring (which I know is TU). 

[Cstaff14]

I am VERY confused with this credit game: I've not bought anything on credit since 1991. My fako credit score (TU) was 488 in October of 2017. I got two secured cards and in April of 2018 my fako (TU) was 702. I had heard that there was a difference in Fico and Fako so I paid to get my Ficos, turns out that my FICO TU was 609. I always keep my credit utiliztion below 2%. The next month I noticed that I took a hit because my balance was 0, so the subsequent month I left a $28 balance, again I took a hit... So the next month, I left a zero balance and took another hit from FICO?

      Currently FICO (TU) has me at 609 and FAKO (TU) has me at 736. This is a huge difference. I will no be applyig for any new credit for some time.

[Anonymous]

FAKO (Credit Karma)
Trans = 603
EQ = 622

FICO
Trans = 648
EQ = 633
EX = 642

(I took the average for my sig)