Hey guys !
I know that FICO offers Transunion and Equifax, but where can i get the most "FICO" Experian score/report ever,since FICO wont offer it anymore?
What do you recomend?
Starting Score: TU 715 EQ 704
joining psecu, its a pennsylvania credit union. I think you donate like $20 and you can join then they can send your experian fico score to you once a month.
but then it is one more inquiry in which im not loking for.
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
@danisgods wrote:Hey guys !
I know that FICO offers Transunion and Equifax, but where can i get the most "FICO" Experian score/report ever,since FICO wont offer it anymore?
What do you recomend?
FWIW, it wasn't FICO's decision by any means. It was Experian's. They're making lots of money selling their FAKO's from their site.
why would experian's own website sell FAKO score? BTW how to know that one is FAKO and the other is FICO.
"why would experian's own website sell FAKO score?"
Because it's not a fake score. FAKO doesn't mean it's some sort of fraudulent score. FAKO is just a clever play on FICO (it's a fake FICO if you will but not a fake score).
FAKO scores are an alternative scoring model. FICOs, FAKOs, are ostensibly predictive tools that take all of the information in a credit report and reduce it to a single metric that attempts to predict future payment behavior. Fair Isaac's scoring model is FICO. But it's proprietary and they charge for it.
So the credit bureaus decided that rather than paying Fair Isaac, they could develop their own scoring model. Presumably, they hoped their algorithm would take hold and they could compete with Fair Isaac for business both at the lender level and with individual credit seekers. Thus far, it seems that they aren't having as much success with lenders, but they can still sell their scores to consumers through their sites, often bundled up with their credit monitoring services. Here's the rub, because they aren't as successful wtih getting lenders to rely on their model, the value of the scores to consumers is dubious (and their success is probably due in large part to consumer confusion regarding credit scores).
So, EX is selling a FAKO on their site because they are trying to increase their market share in the business of selling credit scores. But you probably don't want to buy their score unless and until they are able to convince lenders that it's a good predictive model to rely on. Even if they could claim it is a more accurate predictor of risk, it doesn't matter if no lender uses it.
"If they are going directly to Experian, why wouldnt it be the FAKO we see when we pull it directly from EX ourselves?"
Not sure if you're asking me, and I'm no expert on any of this, so anyone please feel free to correct anything I've said. The creditor is most likely pulling your EX FICO score. I think I've read on here that some lenders use FAKOs whether it be Vantage, Plus, etc., but most likely it is your FICO score. It isn't the FAKO that Experian offers to you because the creditor has much greater bargaining power. If they want the FICO score from EX and EX isn't willing to give it, they can take all of their credit checks to EQ and TU. Naturally, EX allows them to purchase the FICO score.
You and I don't wield that kind of power. EX tells us that we can buy their FAKO or take a hike. It's only one transaction they're losing as opposed to the volume they would lose from each lender if that lender walked away. And while they're losing your business, they're making money from everyone that does purchase their FAKO and they don't have to share that with Fair Isaac. They've basically made a business decision that they can make more money by selling their own score even if they lose customers at the consumer level who are only interested in their FICO scores.
Whether it actually results in increased profits right now, or whether it is a loss-leading strategy hoping that they will eventually cut into Fair Isaac's market share so that they can make money on the lender side as well, I don't know.