FICO - FAKO what the heck?

[Anonymous]

I got my annual free copies of EQ, EX, and TU back on May 16th and bought my scores at the same time.  I just purchased TU's true credit.   I was upset to see my scores for each CRA significantly lower on that report than the ones I got through the agency directly.  I understand that TU provides FAKO scores, but why the difference in the score from now and 5/16?   Are the ones you pull with your annual free report FICO scores and the ones from Truecredit FAKO's even though both the TU ones came from the same company?   I don't see any activity change on the accounts to make a score change.  In fact, I'm monitoring them to see if the positive things I've done are reflected yet but even those changes don't show yet.   Any ideas?

[Anonymous]

"FAKO" refers to a non-FICO score, generated by a different scoring formula. These scores can and often do vary, sometimes widely, from the FICO score.

[Tuscani]

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=ficoscoring&thread.id=2654

[Anonymous]

Thanks TheNewWorldMan.  I already got that far, but my question is to why TU is giving me two different scores.   Shouldn't both of them be FAKO scores or do they sell the FICO score with the one on your annual free report?

[Anonymous]

Thanks Tuscani.  I already read that.  I'm just confused as to why the two different scores from TU.  I expected them both to be the same FAKO score.

[Tuscani]

They are still FAKOs.. any score not from MyFICO is irrelevant.

[Tuscani]

I would think your TC and TU scores would match... guess not.

[MercyMe]

I don't know if this is going to help, but there are two annual credit report sites (at least!)  One is freeannualcreditreport.com and the other is annualcreditreport.com.  I didn't know the difference between the two until my daughter-in-law pulled her free reports from freeannualcreditreport.com, which is run by Experian.  She was able to get all three scores which were based upon Experian's formulations, and were different than the scores pulled at the actual sites.  This could be why your TC/TU scores don't match.  One could have utilized the Experian formula and the other TransUnion's.  If, when you logged onto the site (annualcreditreport/freeannualcreditreport), you weren't taken to the three individual sites, and had to create a profile for each, you may have been on freeannualcreditreport.com.  This was our experience, anyway, when we went to pull her free reports.

I hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

I was taken to each CRA individually.   I guess I can rely on the FICO score from EQ then I hope since the FAKO was about 100 points lower.   Like Tuscani said, I would have thought the TU and TC ones at least would have been matching, but since it doesn't it just has me confused.   It's a bit disheartening to see those things when the only thing that has changed since I pulled the TU report was bringing down my utilization, sending a letter to remove an unauthorized inquiry and sending a HIPPA letter with payment.   I'm really hoping those things will give me a little bump before I apply for my car loan.

[Anonymous]

Tuscani, when you say any score other than a myfico score is irrelevant, does that include the score I got from EQ?