Need Advice on Credit monitoring

[haulingthescoreup]

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@laz98 wrote:
ok, seriously....why the hell don't the credit bureaus sell you REAL scores? what is the deal with these guys? they have to make everything so difficult & expensive!

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FICO owns the FICO score formula.

The CRA's own the reports, and your FICO scores are actually crunched by the CRA's when you pull them. (That's why it might not be a problem if there's something weird on your myFICO report. As long as it's OK on the main reports, it won't affect your score.)

While EQ sells the EQ FICO, both TransUnion and Experian have nice little businesses going selling their FAKO TransRisk and Experian PLUS scores, respectively. They'd rather flog their FAKO's, where they don't have to share any profit. It's possible to buy your TU FICO from transunioncs.com, but it's easier to think of getting your FICO's here (at myFICO), with the exception of EQ from Equifax, if you like.

Oh, and yes, the EQ score that you get on a three-bureau report from TU or EX is a FAKO. The only EQ FICO that you can get other than from here must be bought directly from Equifax.

Are we having fun yet?

[laz98]

*rips hair out*

[MsKiwi]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:

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@laz98 wrote:
ok, seriously....why the hell don't the credit bureaus sell you REAL scores? what is the deal with these guys? they have to make everything so difficult & expensive!

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FICO owns the FICO score formula.

The CRA's own the reports, and your FICO scores are actually crunched by the CRA's when you pull them. (That's why it might not be a problem if there's something weird on your myFICO report. As long as it's OK on the main reports, it won't affect your score.)

While EQ sells the EQ FICO, both TransUnion and Experian have nice little businesses going selling their FAKO TransRisk and Experian PLUS scores, respectively. They'd rather flog their FAKO's, where they don't have to share any profit. It's possible to buy your TU FICO from transunioncs.com, but it's easier to think of getting your FICO's here (at myFICO), with the exception of EQ from Equifax, if you like.

Oh, and yes, the EQ score that you get on a three-bureau report from TU or EX is a FAKO. The only EQ FICO that you can get other than from here must be bought directly from Equifax.

Are we having fun yet?

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You know you're getting a grip on this when what you said makes pefect sense.

I remember when I first started reading here just  how close my head was to exploding.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@laz98 wrote:

*rips hair out*

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ROFLMAO

I'm so sorry; please, let's glue some of that hair back on; it makes you look so sad!

[laz98]

*sniff* ok, i managed to collect some of it...but i think it looks kind of funny now, sticking out everywhere...



this stuff is ridiculous! i feel so overwhelmed trying to read everything, & make sure i'm reading up-to-date, accurate information (like statutes)...there's so much!

[haulingthescoreup]

laz98
Regular Contributor
Posts: 74
Registered: 09-06-2008

Yep, registered 16 days ago; you're now in the official cerebral melt-down stage. Cheer up, it'll get better. I resorted to a legal pad and notes at almost exactly the same stage as you.

Nothing like drinking from a wide-open fire hydrant!

[laz98]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:
laz98
Regular Contributor
Posts: 74
Registered: 09-06-2008

Yep, registered 16 days ago; you're now in the official cerebral melt-down stage. Cheer up, it'll get better. I resorted to a legal pad and notes at almost exactly the same stage as you.

Nothing like drinking from a wide-open fire hydrant!

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AHA! i knew i felt my brain cells quitting in protest!

someone else posted how they took a highlighter to the fdcpa & fcra, in order to get a better handle on them...i think i will do the same. writing notes tends to help me commit things to memory, so i think that's a good route for me. right now, my bookmarks folder is getting filled to the max with all the great information i find here! time to put it all in one place. thanks for the encouragement!

(oh, & GREAT analogy with the fire hydrant....that's EXACTLY how i feel!)

[TangMeister]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
wow I just went to rip off off report website and did not like the reviews for the service. I think im just going to orden the scores directly from all three bureaus when I need them. Thanks for the help tho.

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Your scores that come directly from the bureaus will be FAKO scores, not FICO scores, except for the Equifax score. (They do sell you your EQ FICO.)

Get reports from the bureaus and/or monitoring services; get your scores from myFICO.

FAKO scores rarely match FICO's with any amount of consistency or predictability.

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I completely missed that the OP said they'd be ordering them "directly from all three bureaus"....I just always think of ordering them directly as coming from here at myfico! I really need to reprogram my brain...I always got them straight from here and thought of this as straight from the bureaus. I totally don't equate that with the fact you can get them directly from the three CRAs. DOH!

[haulingthescoreup]

You'd be amazed how often 5 people read a post and reply, and the sixth person comes along and catches something. I miss stuff all the time.

I try to mention that about the reports from myFICO (or any other derived report) and the underlying reports at the bureaus, because there's always something that seems to display oddly on one of the secondary reports.

For instance, on TrueCredit, instead of the rows of green boxes that you get for ontime payments for EX and TU, EQ is just a string of white. And on the printable version, TU and EX say OK OK OK, but EQ just shows X's. About every month or so, we get a panicked post from someone about how all their accounts have fallen off of EQ per their TC report, but it's just the way things display. (I'm guessing it's because EQ only reports MM/YYYY, not MM/DD/YYYY.)

And there seems to be an ongoing funkiness with how TU's data translates over to the myFICO reports, in other words, there are more apt to be strange-looking things on a TU FICO report, although there can be odd little hiccups on others.

But as long as stuff is correct on the underlying report, scores aren't affected, because they are generated from those.