Why does Amex advertise VS 3.0?

[Anonymous]

I know that several months back Amex started providing a VS 3.0 (TU) score with accounts in addition to the EX FICO 8 score that they've always provided.  While I personally find the score worthless, I take no issue with Amex giving customers "more" with their account.  My problem is that Amex is for whatever reason advertising/pushing this useless VS 3.0 when they've got a highly relevant EX FICO 8 score still available.  The VS 3.0 blurb is the first thing you see when you log in (see attached image) and on your main screen it's the score that can be accessed, where you actually have to do some digging to find your EX FICO 8 score now. 

My question here is why?  Perhaps Amex is phasing out the EX FICO 8 score in order to save money, since that costs them more than TU VS 3.0.  When you have both though, it makes no sense to me that you'd showcase the inferior product and hide the good one.

It would be like a Mercedes dealership putting all of their certified pre-owned cars in the front row along the highway and up on pedistals while hiding their brand new 2019's in the lot behind the building.

[Anonymous]

I believe they offer that to everyone...not just people who have AMEX cards. It’s a very smart and effective way of being able to target potential customers without making them apply for their products. They get your EX score from account reviews and applications the consumer provides.

[Anonymous]

I'm speaking of account holders, though.  If you have an account with Amex, upon logging in why are you presented with a VS 3.0 reference and not a FICO reference when FICO is a better product that costs them money to provide.  It's simple to find your VS 3.0 score after logging into your Amex account, where it involves a bit of hoop-jumping to locate your FICO score from them now.

[iced]

Just speculation, but...

I don’t like monopolies. Maybe American Express doesn’t either. There’s nothing wrong with VS per se, but its low adoption/use rate is why it’s “worthless.” That’s never going to change if every bank and creditor continues to ignore or dismiss VS to worship FICO and hand over cash because they have to.

Perhaps American Express thought if they jump in and put some evangelizing in, a few others might, too. Maybe they can lead the charge on getting a second scoring model going. They are a bigger fish in the pond, after all. If they succeed, they can devalue FICO a bit, which in turn gives all the other captive customers that FICO has an alternative to being captive customers.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It would be like a Mercedes dealership putting all of their certified pre-owned cars in the front row along the highway and up on pedistals while hiding their brand new 2019's in the lot behind the building.

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That would actually make more sense to me, that way there would be less chance of road debris hitting the new cars.

[Anonymous]

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@iced wrote:
Just speculation, but...

I don’t like monopolies. Maybe American Express doesn’t either. There’s nothing wrong with VS per se, but its low adoption/use rate is why it’s “worthless.” That’s never going to change if every bank and creditor continues to ignore or dismiss VS to worship FICO and hand over cash because they have to.

Perhaps American Express thought if they jump in and put some evangelizing in, a few others might, too. Maybe they can lead the charge on getting a second scoring model going. They are a bigger fish in the pond, after all. If they succeed, they can devalue FICO a bit, which in turn gives all the other captive customers that FICO has an alternative to being captive customers.

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I don’t think that is it because Capital One offers VS and they have close to twice the cards out there than Amex does. 

[Anonymous]

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@iced wrote:
I don’t like monopolies. Maybe American Express doesn’t either. There’s nothing wrong with VS per se, but its low adoption/use rate is why it’s “worthless.” That’s never going to change if every bank and creditor continues to ignore or dismiss VS to worship FICO and hand over cash because they have to.

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Then why provide (and pay for) FICO scores for your customers then? 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

It would be like a Mercedes dealership putting all of their certified pre-owned cars in the front row along the highway and up on pedistals while hiding their brand new 2019's in the lot behind the building.

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That would actually make more sense to me, that way there would be less chance of road debris hitting the new cars.

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Let's say this dealership is set back 75' off the highway where road debris isn't a factor, not 10' off of it or something.  I think you get my point regardless.

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@iced wrote:
I don’t like monopolies. Maybe American Express doesn’t either. There’s nothing wrong with VS per se, but its low adoption/use rate is why it’s “worthless.” That’s never going to change if every bank and creditor continues to ignore or dismiss VS to worship FICO and hand over cash because they have to.

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Then why provide (and pay for) FICO scores for your customers then? 

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Because some people would likely complain (and eventually generate threads on this forum) if they didn't. They don't have to abandon one option to promote another.

The more companies promote alternative options, the better those options' chances are of eventually sticking.

[Anonymous]

Again, I see no problem with promoting a lesser product... but it doesn't make sense to me that you'd hide the "better" product with the [now] irrelevant one.