oj1963 wrote:
I do not understand FAKO - because according to people on this site myFICO is the only real score. But I am in middle of trying to get a mortgage and I use Transunion, Experian, and Equifax to watch my credit for past 5 yrs and myFICO for last 6 months. Today I went to bank thinking I finally cleaned up my score enough to get a middle score above 620. I pulled a TransUnion report and saw still a low 599 and disappointed. But on myFICO, I see that I improved my score over past couple of months by paying off collection accounts and paid the additional $31 for both scores on myFICO and see I went up to 647. Excitedly I went to the bank, expecting to make it since my Experian account is 690, and she pulls up a merge report that says TU is 612!!!!!! The bank uses either FICO Classic 98 or 04, but either case, the bank is what matters making myFICO the FAKO?? Message Edited by oj1963 on 06-30-2009 06:31 AM
The only place you can get your FICO scores together, other than from a lender, is myFICO.
Other than from a lender, the only place you can get your EQ FICO score is myFICO and Equifax.com. Other than from a lender, the only place you can get your TU FICO score is via myFICO and transunioncs.com (note the -cs). Finally, as of this past February, it is impossible to pull your own EX FICO score without the help of a lender. Your EX FICO Classic score is also available from a CU up in PA called PSECU should you happen to be a member.
All other scores pulled from any other source are FAKO scores. If it doesn't specifically mention "FICO" within the documentation, then it is a FAKO score.
There are several versions of FICO scores out there. Most notably, more lenders are now using TU'04 version over the TU'98 version. MyFICO is still selling the '98 version and there's a push by many of us to get that switched to the '04 version. On average, most have a TU'04 score lower than the '98 version by about 30 pts or so. So, if you pulled your TU FICO from here and got a 647 and the lender uses TU'04 and that was a 612, then that falls in line with the average. Not to confuse anything, but there's also a TU'08 version out there that lenders haven't quite picked up on. Your EQ FICO scores should have matched. This site uses Beacon 5.0 as do most lenders. There's also a Beacon 9.0 version (FICO 08 variety) that was just introduced as well as a mortgage-enhanced EQ score. Don't expect to encounter those anytime soon. Finally, EX-pulling lenders use a Classic score called Fair Isaac Risk Model Version 2 for the most part. Seems like there is a "Version 3" but could be wrong. There is no FICO08 version for EX.
