@mlew2433 wrote:Hi all, I was trying to get a clear answer on this, because even after research on the forum I am a bit confused.
I am an AU on a BBVA card with high limit, long payment history, and low utilization. All 3 of my FICO scores (from myfico.com) seem to reflect this account. However, when underwriters pull my scores (car loan), it seems to be about 50 points lower. So, is this due to the FICO model they use? 08 vs 04 that do take into account authorize user credit card history? If so, is there a way to know what FICO algorithm companies use before applying for a loan? Are there standard algorithms some industries use? (I read the mortgage industry uses FICO04, true?).
Thank you much.
FICO 8 can discount AU's based on FICO's anti-abuse code they put into the algorithm: if it's being counted, sweet!
Auto loans: all bets are off if they pull and auto-enhanced score: it's likely not even an AU issue, it weighs things differently especially around whatever installment history you have on your report.
Regarding what lenders pull, not explicitly now with mortgage being the glaring exception by market practice: you can effectively count on getting EQ 04, TU 04, EX 98 on a standard tri-merge pull if it's a conventional mortgage underwritten in the last 8ish years, and most others follow this from an underwriting perspective.
Everything else is a more sophisticated question: rarely will they tell us (and then we can tell everyone else on the forums) though occasionally we've been able to pick out what score they're using for most of their underwriting either by comparisons, or now with the FICO Open Access program which had the intended benefit of giving us free scores, but also the unintended one of letting us know which ones the lender in question is using as they can only provide a score which they've purchased... and it's doubtful in the extreme they're going to regularly provide an additional score (at additional expense) than what they're using for their underwriting, so we're pretty confident that both Discover and Barclays are on a FICO 8 underwriting standard, and at least Amex for me has matched my EX 08 explicitly but one data point doesn't prove the aggregate.
@CreditDunce wrote:Revalate has a very good answer. I would add if you are looking for a car loan with a FICO 04 score, then credit unions are probably the place you need to be looking. Many are still using FICO 04. I have often seen DCU wants a EQ-04 score of 675 or higher for best rates.
Not all CU's use FICO 04 scores. For example, Penfed uses NextGen. Others will use FICO 08. I am not sure if NextGen includes AU accounts and if so how much they weigh them. However, it is almost always worth checking with your local CU to see the rate they are offering.
Penfed's NextGen score pre-dates FICO 04 (either version of NextGen... was NextGen more than a decade ago haha) so presumably they do indeed count AU accounts.