FICO 08 and Transunion

[nothingman02]

Just wondering, are Transunion the only people employing FICO 08? Or are they?

It says so on fico.com and I was wondering. Especially since I recently became an AU on my brothers account and Transunion was the only  score that did not change at all despite the new account showing up on the report. Exp FAKO went up 13 points for instance. Also, I thoughtFICO 08 was still going to consider AU accounts for scoring.

[Anonymous]

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nothingman02 wrote:

Just wondering, are Transunion the only people employing FICO 08? Or are they?

It says so on fico.com and I was wondering. Especially since I recently became an AU on my brothers account and Transunion was the only  score that did not change at all despite the new account showing up on the report. Exp FAKO went up 13 points for instance. Also, I thoughtFICO 08 was still going to consider AU accounts for scoring.

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FICO 08 is going to consider AU.

Even if TU was using it, the score you get here would not be calculated using FICO 08.

FICO won't switch over to offering FICO 08 to consumers until a majority of the lenders begin using it.

[llecs]

EQ is also adopting the '08 model via a score called Beacon 9.0. That rolls out later this spring I believe.

This website still sells TU'98 scores, rather than TU'08. Once more than half of the lenders out there switch over to '08 (if at all), then this site will start selling '08 scores. You'd be pressed to find a lender that uses TU'08 right now. BTW, AU accounts will still factor into the new scores.

ETA...Sidewinder is a much faster typer.

Message Edited by llecs on 03-16-2009 06:20 PM

[Junejer]

Not to mention Classic '04. Currently, a little more than 50% of lenders use TU Classic '04, and myFICO has yet to announce its changeover. It will be a really lonnnnnnggggg time, before this site starts offering FICO '08.

[nothingman02]

Thanks guys. This is pretty valuable information for us novices trying to figure out ways to clear and rebuild our credit legitimately. Let me organize a bit.

Right now with respect to;

1) TRANSUNION

TU has begun to offer 08 only to lenders as of now. Its March 2008 and lenders are still employing and are split between 98 and 04. Once a vast majority switch over to to 08 model, we consumers will begin to obtain 08 scores. Its going to be a quite a while. I'd imagnie it is going to cost millions in adopting/troubleshooting/implementing/training et al.

2)EQUIFAX

Not yet but will begin to offer 08 (Beacon 9.0) sometime this spring or later. Same as above. So it might be later, if not around the same time as TU.

3) EXPERIAN

Will not provide lenders the 08 scores at all and they (lenders) will have to do with the earlier models.  

So one could infer that;

1) What we get is what the vast majority of lenders use and right now they are using older models

2) We are quite a few years (atleast 4+ perhaps ) before lenders widely start to provide 08 scores

3) What ever may be the case, AU ACCOUNTS WILL BE FACTORED into the scoring methodology. Of course they have to be legitimate and how they decide if the AU account is legitimate will depend upon the scoring model. Right now, they are decided by the last name and address I believe. 

[llecs]

Looks like you got it.

Org. the AU accounts were not going to be factored in. There is a federal law (Can't remember the source) that was loosely interpreted by the legal gurus at FICO that AUs had to be included. It was very ambiguous but there was enough there to warrant concern. BTW, most lenders do not want AU accounts to be factored into scoring, hence the push to remove them for the score. As a side note, VantageScore does not include AUs. Be interesting to see how that plays out down the road.

[nothingman02]

Yep. I remember reading that too. It kind of became an issue when lenders had to consider joint applications from say A and the AU B, and FICO 08 would score B disregarding the AU with A. Although how it prevented the lenders from making a decision I did not try to understand and can't recall the exact law to do so now. But yeah FICO reversed their decision.

So basically the lenders dont want to consider AU accounts but dont have a choice. And FICO does not yet still have a way to do that. Vantage does not even consider AUs so I dont know if anybody would even consider Vantagescore at this point. Perhaps FICO for joint apps and Vantage for single apps? lol.. Unless the law changes or one of them figures out a way to weed out AUs, AU stays and I think thats good. I would have built my credit by then to 820.

BTW I am not a fan of this AU thing.

Message Edited by nothingman02 on 03-17-2009 01:33 PM