Those are real numbers. What they're not saying is whether the score was THE score used to make a decision. Many lenders will use VantageScore in conjunction with FICO to make a lending decision because of the superior trended data. However, the credit world revolves around FICO and it's used to make 9 out of 10 decisions. It's hard to find a lender that will say they use VantageScore predominantly. The most widely known at this time is Synchrony, and that was a fairly recent change, though, we don't know how long they've been testing using VantageScore as the factoring decision.
A lot of it is also very selective wording. VantageScore scores are more economical than FICO scores for lenders, so it of course makes more sense in this case to use VS for pre-screening offers. Whether sending a pre-screened offer to apply for a credit card or loan product is a "lending decision" is certainly up to interpretation, but that's where a huge part of those numbers are coming from. I get 10-15 offers a month from fly-by-night mortgage lenders offering to bundle my revolving debt with a new mortgage refinance to lower my monthly payment (but cost me an arm and a leg in financing fees and interest), so I'm sure I'm personally responsible for over 100 of those "lending decisions" based on VantageScore scores just in that one area each year.
Tenant screening, utility screening, rent-to-own establishments, payday loan companies, etc. make up the overwhelming majority of "lenders" actually using VantageScore scores to make firm offers of credit. For traditional credit products, it's just not something we normally see. I have personally NEVER received a truth in lending disclosure that mentioned a VantageScore score was used for the decision. Synchrony does now appear to be using TU VS4 scores for their decisions, but that is a recent change and I personally hope that doesn't trend with other lenders.
I try to limit my use of "VantageScores are useless," but I personally find them downright offensive. How someone who has a history of defaults and chargeoffs, while their only open credit account is being an authorized user on a $500 store card can have a higher VS3 score than me with decades of credit history and always on-time payments truly boggles my mind, especially when there's often a 200-300 point difference in FICO 8 scores.
Marketing and wording are definitely a part of it. They could be including someone who apped for a card through credit karma after getting a recommendation based on VS.
I don't think I've ever seen a 200-300 point disparity between VS and FICO. About 100 is pretty common, but I've never seen it that high.
I meant when I might have a 720 EQ VS3 and a 830 EQ FICO 8, while the hypothetical person there might have a 730 EQ VS3 and a 580 EQ FICO 8. Both are extremes (but not at all uncommon) inflated and deflated and there is a 250 FICO 8 difference between myself and the "more creditworthy" 730 VS3 person.
Trended data was only implemented in VS4.
VS3 never had it... a lot of lenders trialed VS3 including Chase (my Freedom pre-recon denial came with a VS score, this was back in 2013) but they went internal only within a year I believe.
Cap 1 I think once used it too, but other than Synchrony it is a secondary score at best to my knowledge if it is used at all.
@Revelate wrote:Trended data was only implemented in VS4.
VS3 never had it... a lot of lenders trialed VS3 including Chase (my Freedom pre-recon denial came with a VS score, this was back in 2013) but they went internal only within a year I believe.
Cap 1 I think once used it too, but other than Synchrony it is a secondary score at best to my knowledge if it is used at all.
That's interesting. I could have sworn I read reports from VantageScore where they were using trended data. Can't find them now as any mention of trended data points to 4.0. Also, VantageScore is saying 4.0 will be the first to integrate trended data, so I stand corrected.
@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
@Revelate wrote:Trended data was only implemented in VS4.
VS3 never had it... a lot of lenders trialed VS3 including Chase (my Freedom pre-recon denial came with a VS score, this was back in 2013) but they went internal only within a year I believe.
Cap 1 I think once used it too, but other than Synchrony it is a secondary score at best to my knowledge if it is used at all.
That's interesting. I could have sworn I read reports from VantageScore where they were using trended data. Can't find them now as any mention of trended data points to 4.0. Also, VantageScore is saying 4.0 will be the first to integrate trended data, so I stand corrected.
Grin, I doubt anyone is a true VS expert here, that sounds even more inane than the discourse we usually have 