Credit Score Disparities. Why?

[sh9730]

The good news if you are starting with FICO scores like that, you are way ahead of the game already!

[Anonymous]

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sh9730 wrote:

The good news if you are starting with FICO scores like that, you are way ahead of the game already!

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I want all 700s so I can get good rates.  God God what a difference a point makes in interest calculators.  I remember applying for a loans 2 years ago and my FICO was in the 550 range.  A year later I went back to my CU where I got my previous loan, and it went up 100 points in a year cause I paid on time (minus once).  The advice my CU sales rep gave me was to pay your bills on time, and it's true advice!!! 

[Schoolbuskid]

Yes they are just worthless idiotic scores. Although i do wish they were real in my case because my EX score is 700. But when i go to pull my real FICO i dont have one because i have not had 6 months of credit history with EX!

[Junejer]

SBK, those are hank's real FICO scores. He bought FICO Credit Complete.

[Anonymous]

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hank71 wrote:

I want all 700s so I can get good rates.  God God what a difference a point makes in interest calculators.  I remember applying for a loans 2 years ago and my FICO was in the 550 range.  A year later I went back to my CU where I got my previous loan, and it went up 100 points in a year cause I paid on time (minus once).  The advice my CU sales rep gave me was to pay your bills on time, and it's true advice!!! 

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Yes, they're real.  And my CU ones are the ones they used in evaluating my CW, as I asked them to tell me when we were closing out my loans.

Hank

[Anonymous]

Cheddar, are you saying that the three-bureau scores TrueCredit provides are worthless FAKOs?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Cheddar, are you saying that the three-bureau scores TrueCredit provides are worthless FAKOs?

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Hey Mike,

Truth be told, the credit scores that anyone (besides myFICO) provides are FAKOs. That's because they use a completely different system to evaluate your credit worthiness. It's based on the same principals, but most if not all businesses in the free world use FICO scores to determine your credit worthiness. To set an equal playing field, businesses accept the Fair Isaac (FICO) as the universal scores.

Think of it this way: In this analogy, you are selling your car. You can use Kelley Blue Book or you can use NADA or some other company's book to determine the worth of your vehicle. The "book value" of your car in the book you have says $5,000 (FAKO score). The book that the buyer has says $4,000 (FICO score). Since their book has a more accurate and accepted true value of your vehicle, they use their value. YOUR book just gave you an estimated guess (for lack of a better word) and an elevated sense of your (car's) worth.

In other words, you may think you have a credit score of "680" according to your "book value" (... i.e. FAKO score), but your FICO score (the standard that 99.9% of credit worthiness is dependent upon) is only 610 or even 590. This can have (or should have) a huge impact in your decision to open new accounts, buy a car or a home, etc. as it can mean the difference in 5-10 percentages points on an auto finance, and even 10-20% on credit card APRs.

To be BEST informed and to see what creditors see in terms of your legitimate scores and credit worthiness, you HAVE to... not should, but HAVE TO use FICO scores. As mentioned in the other posts, you can monitor changes in your credit report and get alerts through other companies (great for fraud protection and unauthorized usage of your credit), but that's about all they are good for.

As Hank said, the best thing you can do to improve your score is pay on time and not miss payments. The other honorable mentions include keeping a low (less than 50% balance or even lower) balance on your cards, keeping inquiries to a minimum, and avoid getting in over your head at all costs. Credit can be ruined in less than 30 days and can take up to 10 years to repair.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that is certainly good advice. I had a BK7 discharged in 2004 so, while still large in the rearview mirror, it is getting further and further behind me. Since then, I have done well with my two cards (WaMu and US Airways), and my car loan (Toyota credit, then Wachovia Dealer Services). I have had no late payments since 2004, kept util at 7-10% (at least on reporting week ) and WaMu just doubled my CL without request.

But, back to the scoring thing, I was surprised to see that the TrueCredit scores and the "Certified" FICO scores are so different. Most people on here see their FAKO scores higher than FICO, this was not the case for me (which I am happy about, indeed)

True Credit: TUC: 649 EXP: 628 EFX: 680
Certified FICO: TUC: 692 EXP: 669 EFX: 704

Definitely felt good to get into the "700 Club," for the first time, as that is a major goal of mine for 2008 (All three over 700).

Message Edited by IllinoisMike on 02-28-2008 10:38 AM

Message Edited by IllinoisMike on 02-28-2008 10:38 AM

[Anonymous]

Dr. Dolittle -

That is a great analogy.  It's so simple but I see it posted over and over again.  FAKO scores - any scores not a FICO - are in and of themselves not a good judge of your credit worthiness because the equations used are different from company to company and can vary wildy.  Because they do not correspond with FICO - the trusted standard - the FAKO scores are in effect useless.  For example, I saw a 60 point jump in a FAKO score about 18 months ago for one company, after getting a disputed item off my report.  It took about 45 days for it to change my FICO score and the point increase was... one point.  This disparity in and of itself should be a clue that we really can't use these FAKO scores to get what we need.  What we need is to know how a lender will view us based on our score, and the lenders (vast majority of them) use FICO. 

In my opinion for the most part the companies that promote FAKO scores are in it for a quick buck, not to help you have a good understanding of where you stand as far as your credit worthiness.

This brings us back to the services these FAKO companies use.  They can be valuable - daily monitoring and pulling of reports to check the progress of a dispute etc... but ultimately if it is not flowing through to one of the BIG THREE EX EQ TU FICO scores - that can also be considered useless. IMHO.  Plus, daily monitoring?  I'd rather spend time with my son or my friends.

Solution?  Are people looking for the solution? Use FICO scores.  From a trusted source (here).  Check them as often is feasable - there are some great quarterly monitoring programs here as well as Score Watch if you want a more line of time experience.  All program prices are very reasonable and you can sometimes get discounts on them if you know where to look (google for discounts).  I can't afford it! you say... Well, if you are participating in other score watch programs that provide FAKO scores, withdraw from them and spend that same money investing in the information that really means something.  You can get it from this site.

Jan 06 - 620

Jan 07 - 664

Jan 08 - 696 - all EQ 

Will post other scores when I buy them.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for this info.  I had recently asked TU this same question and they said that only their score is valid, not EX, not EQ or even MyFICO.com.  I had to laugh about that.