Big difference in FICO scores? Why?

[mviti]

I'm sorry if this seems like a newbie question, but I'm confused about why some lenders use one verison of FICO and when we buy our scores through my myFICO it's totally different. I just got approved through PenFed and their Risk based pricing notice tells my my FICO score is 686 and when I bought my FICO here on myFICO the same day it's 616. Then I noticed like 8 versions of FICO scoring. It's very confusing! I didn't see any verison with the 686 score that PenFed listed. What gives?

[Anonymous]

1) Lenders are free to choose any score they want for lending

2) What kind loan did you get approved for?

3) Different versions were created to give a more accurate assessment of how much of a risk a person is to default on a particular type of loan

[mitchblue]

Penfed uses the NextGen Score, max score of 950.

[Anonymous]

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@mitchblue wrote:

Penfed uses the NextGen Score, max score of 950.

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Correct and there is no where you can get that score other than a lender (very few) that use this particular model.

[mviti]

Thank you all for the explanation!