Newbie really confused with Fico Transunion & Transunion Company itself

[Anonymous]

I  checked my score today with a Fico product I purchased and I checked my score directly with Transunion.  Why would the score for Transunion with the Fico product is 710 and Transunion directly is 654.  A difference of 56 points.

Which is correct?  Why would there be such a difference with the same CRA? 

I am trying to improve my credit scores because eventually I will need a mortgage since the building I live in is going co-op.  Which score would a bank get?  The one from Fico or the one directly at Transunion?

Any info will help.  Thank you.

[ngerasimatos]

Your FICO score is the one hat matters as most lenders use that for determining your ranking.

[dragnldy]

It might have been your VantageScore that you purchased instead of the FICO.  It scores a little differently.  Do a search on the board for vantagescore and it will lead you to a couple threads that might help you understand it.  VantageScore is a formula that the 3 CRAs devised to get their piece of the pie away from FICO, but not many lenders use them.  They have a different rate, too, up to 990 instead of the FICO 850. 

[Anonymous]

The myFICO score for the TransUnion is the one most likely that almost all lenders and banks will use. Very few use the Vantage score which is bought directly from TransUnion.

[Anonymous]

Please read Credit 101 before posting!  This is by far the most asked and re-asked question in this forum.   If it does not say FICO score, it is not and is worthless.   Period.

[haulingthescoreup]

I think that the scores that you buy from the TransUnion site are the "TransUnion TransRisk Scores", which might be the same as the TrueCredit FAKO's, at least for TU. (Since I have TC, and the log-in is saved on my computer, I keep getting whisked to the TC site.)

To buy a Vantage score, which I don't recommend, unless you're bored out of your mind and you want to spend $6 for nothing, you have to buy it through the EX site:

http://www.experian.com/consumer_online_products/vantage_score.html

You'll know if you're looking at a Vantage score, because it won't say TU or EX or whatever: it's the info from all three reports, rolled into one score. The range is from 501 to 1,000 I think --pretty comical error on their site for the top score --and they assign a letter grade. It's the creation of all three CRA's working together (scary thought) to try to break the FICO score effective monopoly among lenders, so there's just one score. Interestingly, it seems to be the big roadblock to FICO 08 implementation, at least with EQ.

Back to TU TransRisk scores, I just dug this up on their site:

"The TransUnion TransRisk New Account Credit Score is provided to help you better understand how lenders view your credit report. It is not an endorsement or a determination of your qualification for a loan. . . .TrueCredit is not connected in any way with Fair, Isaac and Company; the credit score provided here is not a so-called FICO score. The credit scores of TransUnion may not be identical in every respect to any consumer credit scores produced by any other company."

True dat.