Mint Mistake?

[Anonymous]

My FAKO score updated today with Mint.com. I was expecting it to report $301 balance on my cards (approximately 1% utilization) and I added my new Sallie Mae account to it prior to the update, so it would reflect my total available limit. Instead of reporting $301, it is reporting $1,200. The only thing I can think is that it is reporting the large purchase my husband recently made from the card I am an AU on. I don't have that card linked with Mint.com because it is a card I don't ever use so I am not sure how it reports it. I guess I am just confused because when I look at the credit card summary, it shows only $301, but the credit score summary shows more thant that. It would make sense because the total available credit limit reporting does seem to include the card he used for that purchase that I am an AU on, however, I am an AU on two of his cards and it is not reporting the other card. Hopefully this makes sense to someone and they can possibly explain it to me, as I'm just a little confused. I checked all my cards to make sure there were no mistakes or fraudulent charges and everything looks fine. And it would make sense for it to be around $1,200 based off my cards plus his card but like I mentioned, I am an AU on two of his accounts and it is only reporting one of them.

We pay off our cards each month so the balance I am not concerned about, I am just annoyed it is reporting more than what I was expecting and it won't update again for 3 months lol

The other thing is although it is reporting my new CL with Sallie Mae, it is not reporting the inquiry (on Mint). Why would that be?

I am not concerned about the score itself as I understand it is a fake score and it is still reporting lower than what my Barclaycard FICO shows. Plus, next week I should also be able to check my score with my Slate card as well. Any insight on this would be appreciated!

[VirusCredit13]

Whether you link the account to mint or not, the credit score you receive is based on your credit report not your mint account. I believe it is Equifax, so when you view your Equifax account here or any other place where you see your full report, confirm which AU user accounts appear on it and which ones don't. 

[Anonymous]

Ahh.. That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation. I do see that it recognizes my youngest account is only 1 month old (the Sallie Mae) but it does not report it as a hard inquiry.. So strange!

[VirusCredit13]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
Ahh.. That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation. I do see that it recognizes my youngest account is only 1 month old (the Sallie Mae) but it does not report it as a hard inquiry.. So strange!

---

They probably didn't pull Equifax for your application, both times it was Transunion they pulled for me. 

[takeshi74]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I guess I am just confused because when I look at the credit card summary, it shows only $301, but the credit score summary shows more thant that.

---

Keep in mind that any score is based on report data and not the current status of your accounts.  You might find it beneficial to understand when your accounts report.

Mint's data and your reports are two entirely different things.  Any time you want to look into why a score changed you need to refer to the report data before and after the change and carefully analyze.  You cannot rely on Mint's data to do this.  Mint provides the score but Mint does not generate the score with their data.

It's also difficult to tell what model Mint's score is using but it looks like the data comes from Equifax.  It's probably an Equifax FAKO so be careful relying on it as an indicator of what a creditor will pull for you.  Creditors use different scoring models and different CRA's.

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I am not concerned about the score itself as I understand it is a fake score and it is still reporting lower than what my Barclaycard FICO shows. Plus, next week I should also be able to check my score with my Slate card as well. Any insight on this would be appreciated!

---

Don't just consider "fake" and "real".  Even with FICO there are a number of different models used by creditors -- see also the Understanding FICO Scoring subforum and its stickies.  These different FICO models will produce different results.  Barclay provides a TU 08.  Slate, IIRC, is a bankcard enhanced score though I don't recall CRA it is based on.

[CreditDunce]

Why not join CreditKarma for the free weekly TU and EQ credit reports?    I wouldn't link any accounts via CK since you have Mint.  But CK is a much better tool to keep track of your credit reports.   What shows up on your EQ report can be very different than your EX and TU reports.