Credit Score Confusion

[Trudy]

Great.  Hope you get the house you want.

Regarding services to monitor your reports and scores, there are several free services that provide great report detail for free for all 3 bureaus.  They, like the paid subscriptions you have with EQ and TU provide the Vantage score or their own proprietary score.  Not FICO which is the most commonly used score model.  Many of us use the free sites for regular updates to our report detail and ignore the scores.

MyFICO is the only source for ALL scores (that I'm aware of).  Great for when you're planning to app (1 or 2 time purchase).  It's up to you if it's worth the money to pay for one of the monthly subscription.  Many think not which I understand and many think so which I understand. 

[Anonymous]

I cancelled my trial memberships to the 3 individual bureaus.  I now have a paid membership to myfico.com, and the freebies for monitoring. (Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, WalletHub, and Nerd Wallet).  I did a credit simulation on myfico.com and found that if I pay down my credit cards to (as suggested) $0 on 3 cards and 10% on one, all my scores will jump significantly (roughly 25 points).  You all have been great with your responses, and I am grateful to all who did.

[Anonymous]

The thing about FICO scores that others have mentioned is the different models used. For example, a home loan generally use a FICO 2 and a credit card can use a FICO bankcard 2 or other. There are around 30 different FICO scoring models. In addition to this, there are proprietary models used by the lenders themselves. Some will disclose the model used but it’s rare.
Try the experian app and a free trial of the premium service. There you can see about a dozen different experian scores based on different models. I like the app so much, I pay the $20 a month for it.

[Queen_Etherea]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for the info.  Yes, I paid for the subscription for each bureau for monitoring.  I may cancel them all.  They are trials.

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I would definitely stick with Experian's subscription. I always do the $1 trial, then cancel before the 7 days are up. Then, after a week or so, I'll log in a thing will pop up allowing me to do the $1 trial again. So I basically get all 3 scores twice a month for $2, plus I get my daily EX score. 

[Trudy]

Just had to chime in about the simulator.  Most find these don't always predict accurately as each profile is different.  But based on what you stated it said, seems to have provided you some useful advice -  # of cards reporting a balance plays into a number of the FICO versions.  Most noticeably MTG. 

There are thresholds when it comes to UTL.  Individual and aggregate separately which may already know.  Below 10% should be stated as below 8.9% of reported balance.  This is different than 9 point anything %, including interest which is technically below 10%.  The all but one at or below 8.9% reported on one card is a known booster.  Whether it will net you 25 points is dependent upon your profile.