Credit Karma vs FICO

[Anonymous]

Since my file has been clean, my VS 3.0 scores are usually around 15 points lower than my FICO 8's.

With maxed out FICO 8's at 850, I can't seem to ever get my VS 3.0's above 836.  I believe member T. Thumb reported similar numbers to mine with his VS 3.0's stalling out in the upper 830's as well.

[CreditInspired]

I use CK only for fun — just another pair of eyes.

So, when my FICO scores were in the low mid-600s 3 yrs ago, CKs TU & EQ scores vacillated as much 66 pts in favor of CK. But once my FICO scores reached high 700-low 800, CK scores seemed to align more accurately to within 3-7 pts of one another, but again still in favor of CK.

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Since my file has been clean, my VS 3.0 scores are usually around 15 points lower than my FICO 8's.

With maxed out FICO 8's at 850, I can't seem to ever get my VS 3.0's above 836.  I believe member T. Thumb reported similar numbers to mine with his VS 3.0's stalling out in the upper 830's as well.

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Yup, I see the same thing - VS3 capped out at 834 for me on TU, and 837 on EQ and EX, I've never seen mine get higher than that.

(Unlike VS2, which was ridiculously easy to pin at 990....)

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Since my file has been clean, my VS 3.0 scores are usually around 15 points lower than my FICO 8's.

With maxed out FICO 8's at 850, I can't seem to ever get my VS 3.0's above 836.  I believe member T. Thumb reported similar numbers to mine with his VS 3.0's stalling out in the upper 830's as well.

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Highest reported VantageScore 3.0 I have seen reported is 839. That was mentioned in a VantageScore white paper study. It was much easier for me to achieve Fico 8 850s and Fico 9 850s than VantageScore 3.0 835s or even VantageScore 830s. Of course, VantageScore dings me significantly for not enough accounts.

Below are a couple tables for percentile comparisons. From a percentile perspective, an 827 VS3 score would be on par with an 845 Fico 8 score.

The below table from  a 2015 VantageScore white paper

[iv]

It looks rather like VS3 doesn't have a top-end buffer like FICO8 does.

[Anonymous]

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@iv wrote:

It looks rather like VS3 doesn't have a top-end buffer like FICO8 does.

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And moreover, it's also possible that the "850" ceiling in V3 is fictitious, much as it is for the FICO models preceding FICO 8.  (E.g. the EQ mortgage score has a true maximum of 818, etc.)  

The 300 bottom end for the standard FICO models is also not entirely correct.  I think TT has posted a white paper before which seems to clearly show that the lowest possible score for FICO 8 is something in the low to mid 300s -- but not 300.

I wonder whether BBS or iv might get a few extra points on V3 if their total utilization went from < 1% to something like 4.2%.  I believe TT has conjectured that V3 has a sweet spot around there -- and that ultralow utilizations by comparison (e.g. 0.7%) have a small scoring penalty.

[Anonymous]

Credit karma doesn't do Fico score. It's transunion and equifax both are vantage scores. Your fico is on experian

[Anonymous]

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@iv wrote:

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(Unlike VS2, which was ridiculously easy to pin at 990....)

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What source is there for a VS2 score?  I've never seen one personally, but would be interested to see it for S&G's if it's possible.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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I wonder whether BBS or iv might get a few extra points on V3 if their total utilization went from < 1% to something like 4.2%.  I believe TT has conjectured that V3 has a sweet spot around there -- and that ultralow utilizations by comparison (e.g. 0.7%) have a small scoring penalty.

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While my reported utilization usually sits at 1% aggregate, I have taken it as high as 5% at least once in the last 8 months and it's come in at 3% and 4% a couple of times as well just the way balances fell when I wasn't micromanaging them.  I never saw any clear score shifts on my VS 3.0's (that I couldn't tell were from something else) so I'm not sure that those utilization changes mattered on my profile. 

If I'm at 836 and the highest reported score is 839, it would be cool to know where I'm lacking that's causing the 3 point deficit.  I always figured it had something to do with one of the age of accounts factors... perhaps AoYA for example, thinking that possibly an AoYA of 24 months was needed for maximum points or something (I'm at 20 months currently). 

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@iv wrote:

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(Unlike VS2, which was ridiculously easy to pin at 990....)

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What source is there for a VS2 score?  I've never seen one personally, but would be interested to see it for S&G's if it's possible.

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You won't find one these days. I used to get VS2 from Transunion but, like other sources they have migrated to VS3. As IV mentions, getting a 990 on VS2 was rather easy - 2% of the population achieved that score (score range 501 - 990). I have a distribution table on VS2 from Experian (pasted below).

Another model that is relatively easy to achieve top score is Experian National Equivalency - available free thru credit.com. Score range 360 - 840. It looks like 4% get a perfeect score with this model. (distribution table directly below)

Knowing how my profile scores on various models has been a hobby for me. I almost signed up with PenFed to see what my Fico Next Gen score was but, found out it would be a hard pull. Canceled application prior to executing. One of the more obscure scores I found interesting is CreditXpert (score range 350 -850). I got my EQ/TU/EX scores for a small fee thru PrivacyGuard. They appear to approximate mortgage scores.