@Anonymous wrote:
I did my due diligence and googled. I also understand that each of them keep track of certain things and have variable usages for potential lender.
I want to know something simple: to keep track of my journey to repair credit, and secondly, to know what the big boys are going to look at (mortgage and car, etc.), what one is the best one to have on my radar? Mine are all over the place. Credit Karma has me at 710 and 720, but whatever took amex and discover have is much less "generous" and I have 660/658 with both.
Good news is, I know my scores have increased from last year at this time by over 100 points (even the low ones) because I've been paying off debt, writing to companies to have them remove the one-time-late charge, etc. I also have a paid lien and judgment, but I don't think those were being calcuated after July.
In any case, where is you to-go to look at the health of your FICO.
While the scores that CreditKarma gives you are real scores, they are not FICO scores, but Vantage 3.0 credit scores. Currently there are no major lenders that we are aware of that use Vantage score in their decisions to lend credit or not.
As for FICO scores, the scores that American Express and Discover are giving you are FICO 08 scores and are very informative as they are some of the scores that lenders use in granting credit. There are I believe 27 versions of FICO scores that encompass the 3 major credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. They include FICO 98, 04, 08 and 09 models and give you your FICO Mortgage, Bankcard Enhanced (credit cards) and Auto scores. Depending on your credit goals you may want to familiarize yourself with all of them and get all of those scores at some point. While there are many places to get your FICO scores in some form, some free as you have with Amex and Discover and some paid, FICO (as in here) is the only place to receive all of those scores thru the site's 3B reports.
Good luck with your rebuilding and let us know if you have questions.
