Credco FICO II vs Exerian FICO

[Anonymous]

My mortgage broker pulled a report from credco which shows my "Experian FICO II" score is 677.  Later the same day, I pulled my credit reports from Experian, Equifax, TransUnion which showed scores of 765, 777, 765.  Broker says there shouldn't be such a big difference and I should call Experian.  I'm not getting anywhere with calling Experian.  Any thoughts, comments, advice?

[MarineVietVet]

@Anonymous wrote:

My mortgage broker pulled a report from credco which shows my "Experian FICO II" score is 677.  Later the same day, I pulled my credit reports from Experian, Equifax, TransUnion which showed scores of 765, 777, 765.  Broker says there shouldn't be such a big difference and I should call Experian.  I'm not getting anywhere with calling Experian.  Any thoughts, comments, advice?

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HI there.

Did you get all 3 from the Experian website? If so then none of those are FICO scores. They are called "PLUS" scores and no lender uses them.

No one has been able to buy their own Experian FICO score since February of 2009. Creditors can pull Experian and also there is a CU (PSECU) in Pennsylvania that supplies that information to it's members only. You can only buy true FICO scores at a few places. One place is here at myFICO.

At one time you could also purchase your Transunion score at transunioncs.com but no more. Wal Mart now offers a TU08 score to those who have their store card and the Discover version.

Equifax recently stopped selling the 4 FICO reports/yr product but it's still available as an affiliate link:
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/otc/landing.ehtml?^start=&companyName=mtbk_esn3r

(With all due credit to long time member llecs for this):

"Virtually everyone sells scores, but they are not all FICO scores. If you got scores from the big 3, then very likely 2 or all 3 of them are not FICO scores. Experian and TransUnion do not sell FICO scores on their website. We call these non-FICO scores, FAKOs, and can easily be as much as a few points to 100+ points off your real FICO when pulled the same day. If it didn't say "FICO" next to the score, then it isn't.

Other companies (e.g. freecreditreport.com, freescore.com, truecredit, creditkarma, Equifax Credit Complete, Quizzle, and dozens of others out there) sell scores, but they are nothing more than gimmicks and lenders don't use them. They do this because they want to avoid paying any fees to FICO and when they say "credit score" people buy it anyway on the assumption that it is a FICO. The scores are off because the formula is different, factors in different things as compared to FICO, and score ranges are different than FICO's (e.g. FICO is 300-850, Vantage is 501-990, PLUS is 330-830, TransRisk is 350-850, and so on)."

Edited to add: Shame on your broker for not knowing all this.

[dreamer2014]

Hi there, we are in the market for a new home. As  a  matter of fact, I just learned about FICO II today as I was confused and shocked when reading my lender pull report. Here I am subscribed to USAA credit monitoring and have all my scores and come to find out they are much HIGHER than I thought. So was my husband's scores. I am now wondering if I should continue the monthly subscription especially since we have been prequalified. These forums are so informative.

[ezdriver]

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@dreamer2014 wrote:

Hi there, we are in the market for a new home. As  a  matter of fact, I just learned about FICO II today as I was confused and shocked when reading my lender pull report. Here I am subscribed to USAA credit monitoring and have all my scores and come to find out they are much HIGHER than I thought. So was my husband's scores. I am now wondering if I should continue the monthly subscription especially since we have been prequalified. These forums are so informative.

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My opinion has been that only lender pulled trimerge reports are relevant for mortgage application and qualification purposes. You may subscribe to any credit monitoring service that can convince you to part with your money just as long as you know that what you receive is useless to lenders evaluating your credit for mortgage purposes. This topic is well documented in this forum.

[Peter1142]

Eq was my middle score for most of the process and the scores purchased here for Eq were extremely useful for me, and matched all my lender pulls exactly, from different lenders.

Whatever Eq score you pull on here, there is a 66% chance that will be your qualifying middle score or lowest score. Not useless at all. Obviously, you can't be 100% sure of your qualifying middle score without a trimerge hardpull.

[dreamer2014]

Thanks Peter1142! Your reply was helpful. I will try it out.

[ezdriver]

I wonder why my middle score from my trimerge report is my TUC score? 

[rthornto]

I believe Congress needs to investigate industry credit scoring scam.  Too many credit scores which no one can understand and false reporting (where retail and institiutional uses eg formulas vary greatly) which in the end proves incomprehensable for the consumer when acquiring credit.  Again, expressly to make money for the credit institutions and not to aid the consumer.

[Peter1142]

Credit scores have become a giant mess. I agree Congress should institute sime kind of standardization... basic scoring model all lenders use, that they can then overlay if desired. The brand name "FICO" has become pretty meaningless with all the different versions.

[rthornto]

Precisely.  However, to standarize would mean enormous loss of revenue (no longer have competitive products).   Again, I'm disgusted with the credit SCORING aspect not the credit reporting.  The scoring you pay for as a consumer and believe is used equitability by industry lenders, etc. is a myth.  The score is the sole decision attribute for interest rate determination where a small score variation will have a big financial impact.  Better still - the lenders play the middle score game so they will reap more interest.  They all have jumped in this game over the last decade or so as to profit themselves with no benefit to the consumer.