Can anyone explain this?

[Anonymous]

I have a WaMu credit card that provides a FICO score tracking facility. It has a FICO trademark next to it and everything, so I don't think this is a FAKO score - its always tracked what lenders have told me pretty closely. I have a short credit history (3.5 yrs), so I've always kept a weather eye on this. 

Last year  (09/08) my score dropped from 802 to 698 due to a single 30 day late due to an oversight on my part (oops!). I paid that off immediately, and I have no other late payments or derogatories, and my score recovered to 740 according to WaMu around 1/10/09. Now my wife an I are in the process of looking for a house, and we have a pre-approval from a local credit union for a jumbo-conforming loan at a good rate (5.125% for 5/1, 5.625% for 30 yr fixed, no points, 20% down), but while talking to another broker he reported that my credit score was showing as 697 and proceeded to tell me I needed 25% down and only qualified for 6.125%.

Now naturally I told him we weren't going to be doing business, but I did come here and pull my report and scores and he is correct about the score, but basically nothing has happened since I got the other loan approval except the 2 credit enquiries. They didn't tell me my score, but didn't seem even remotely concerned about our credit worthiness (my wife admittedly has a much longer and better credit history and they may have taken account of that).  

Any idea what's happened here? In particular:

1. Is the WaMu reported FICO score a real FICO score or is it compromised in some way?

2. Is it possible for the impact of one credit enquiry for the same product within 30 days to be that big? It was my understanding that it should be almost nothing.

Simon

[GFer]

The WaMu score is a PFICO score. That means it's a score for rating your revolving credit (credit cards).

Your true fico scores are found here. Most scores you get anywhere else are fakos (bs scores) and can be off more than 100 points! Crazy and useless, huh?

The mortgage brokers pull your ficos. And you ficos can and usually are different than you pfico.