Difference between MyFico EQ and EQ Fico from Discover - any guess why?

[Anonymous]

I received a denial letter from Discover. One of the things it listed was my Equifax score (type: Fico) at 667, but MyFico lists Equifax as 617. Any guesses why there would be such a difference? Is there some kind of cerdit card-enhanced score, similar to the auto-enhanced score that I know about?

Thanks in advance

Mike

[GregB]

There are Auto and BankCard Industry enhanced FICO versions for most Classic FICOs.

The Beacon 5.0 sold here is the score that is used for almost all mortgages so is probably the best EQ FICO to be able to get if we can only get one version.

There are definitely Auto and BankCard Industry versions for Beacon 5.0.

There is also a later Beacon 09. It also has both Industry versions.

Since the theoretical range for Classic FICOs is 300-850 and the theoretical range for Auto and BankCard Industry versions is 250-900, it is generally assumed that the additional Scorecard used can help or hurt your FICO by 50 points. Since your FICO provided by Discover is exactly 50 points higher, we can guess that is helped by being Beacon 09 AND the BankCard Industry version. Either that or your BankCard history is fabulous and the other history is really bad.

[nuggets321]

+ 1 on GregB's take on the issue.... CS800 seems to be pretty knowledgeable with the differrent scoring models that are out there was well.... I think I remember CS800 saying something about some lenders also using a newer version of the TU score which is TU08 if I remember his post, when I received my score with my approval letter from Discover it was also definitely higher than the score I got that same day from here...

[GregB]

TU has Classic 98, which is the version sold here, plus 4 Industry version. They have Classic 04 plus 4 Industry versions. They have FICO 8 plus 2 of the previous 4 Industry versions, Auto and BankCard. They have added a new version, FICO 8 Mortgage Risk Score.

If you add the previous version, probably not used much at all, and the two versions of FICO Next Gen you come up with 21 TU FICO versions. They also offer 30 more non-FICO scores, many of them not really Risk scores used for new credit applications.

That still leaves you with around 35-40 TU scores that can be used for new credit even if some of them are pretty limited like the scores used on new utility applications.

[Anonymous]

This makes sense. My recent history (since 2007) has 100% on-time on credit cards except for one 30-day in late 2008, but the mortgage has several 30-day-late payments. I also have a lot of enquiries, mainly from an auto dealer going rate shopping at the start of this year.