Discrepancy between Discover Fico score and Fico Equifax monitoring

[Kazuya]

Penders = Lenders*

[DaveSignal]

Although consumer pulled FICO scores may not be beneficial for everyone, they work well for many people. In my own experience, I have not yet applied for a single loan or credit card for which I have not been approved in the last three years that I have been monitoring FICO scores.

[Kazuya]

But point remains... You can't bash "fako" scores left and right and say the fico scores are the holy grail of all scores just to find out: oh but this, and oh but that, oh but then... etc.

I am in the same boat as you my fico scores tend to be dependable. But I am still nervous when thinking of auto loan.

[Anonymous]

The issue here is that the lending industry uses a wide variety of scores, and each scoring model has slightly different weights.  For example, the "auto enhanced" option gives greater weight to past auto loan history.

This makes perfect sense if you're in the lending industry, but it's hard on consumers, who naively believe that there's "one true score".  In reality there isn't.

People on these forums tend to overuse scores, I think, and they assume that if they reach some threshold like 720 then a lender will automatically approve them.  In reality, approval criteria are more complex than this.  It would be better to focus on what's in the report, and try to improve it.  For many cases where a person is denied credit, the reasons are obvious -- poor payment history, maxed out cards, 10 new CCs in the last few months, and so on.

It takes a lot of work to develop a good scoring model, and I personally would be loath to lump them all together, and say that they're doing basically the same thing.  I personally have found it most useful to use my monthly EX 04 / TU 08 scores as general indicators, rather than assuming that there's a single "right" score.

Suppose that MyFico switched to using the 04 scores, thereby matching the mortgage business.  This would solve certain problems, but scores would still not match those used by lenders, because lenders are using proprietary scoring models, along with 08 scores and auto/bankcard enhanced scores.

Or suppose that MyFico makes available the complete 04, 08, auto enhanced, and bankcard enhanced series, for a total of 12 scores.

This would benefit a few people, while leaving most folks terribly confused.

Or suppose that FICO as a company ceases to exist 30 minutes from now, and the vacuum is filled by the Chase Deluxe scoring model (0-500 range), the Citi Supreme model (245-795 range), and the Discover Excelsior model (385-1025 range).

Would things be better off in such a scenario?

[tieton]

I have to applaud you Kazuya, you are absolutely right in everything you have said so far. I would go as far as saying that myfico scores ARE "FAKO" scores in some cases. This was my experience yesterday: I applied for a personal line of credit for overdraft protection with my credit union, BECU, and was denied. Denied for ANY amount in fact! I had purchased my TU score last Thursday or Friday which was sitting at a 683 according to myFICO. Here I thought I was sitting pretty good. BECU pulled TU, which according to whatever scoring model they use was a 629. Say WHAT??? 54 points is a huge discrepancy. I realize that banking institutions are probably more stringent on their lending criteria, but I am seriously gun-shy about applying for ANYTHING now. I order myFICO scores once or twice every 2 months to monitor how my "real scores" are doing. I use other more inexpensive sources to monitor my reports daily. However, it appears as though I am just throwing away $21.65 per score as it seems I cannot rely on even these scores. I am a little miffed, that I applied for this LOC based on the TU score I ordered here only to be declined AND now with a new inquiry on my report. I would not have applied if I didn't think I had a fighting chance to be approved. I don't apply for new credit very often. So someone answer me this: What industries are these scores in-line with?? I agree, these FICO scores should not be touted as "what 90% of lenders use" if that is not what is being sold here. Otherwise it is just marketing-speak, and I can save some dough ordering FAKO scores that yield the same results.

[tieton]

User5387, I believe folks are terribly confused anyway. I also believe "people tend to overuse scores," only to the same degree that we as consumers have been led to believe they are important in lending decisions. I think many of us understand there is a variety of criteria that go into an approval. However, we also cannot account for every nuance in credit report data. We can't completely know what is going to be important to one lender versus another, and what is going cause a decline. Allthough some things are more obvious than others. In that way, what is actually in the reports is also as unreliable as the scores themselves. We use the scores to monitor where along the gradient we are and the likelihood of getting approvals. Most understand that lying somewhere between the high 600s - 800s, there isn't too much holding a person back from most types of credit. We can generally infer that with a certain credit score range, the risk of getting a decline/new inquiry combo is less and worth the application. If scores are 30, 40, 50 points less than what a lender pulls, that is TOO big of a difference to be even general. It makes them useless in my mind.  If we can't rely on scores to some degree, then we are just taking shots in the dark while we build a stack of inquiries, and throw away money to these services to monitor them.

[Anonymous]

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@tieton wrote:

User5387, I believe folks are terribly confused anyway. I also believe "people tend to overuse scores," only to the same degree that we as consumers have been led to believe they are important in lending decisions. I think many of us understand there is a variety of criteria that go into an approval. However, we also cannot account for every nuance in credit report data. We can't completely know what is going to be important to one lender versus another, and what is going cause a decline. Allthough some things are more obvious than others. In that way, what is actually in the reports is also as unreliable as the scores themselves. We use the scores to monitor where along the gradient we are and the likelihood of getting approvals. Most understand that lying somewhere between the high 600s - 800s, there isn't too much holding a person back from most types of credit. We can generally infer that with a certain credit score range, the risk of getting a decline/new inquiry combo is less and worth the application. If scores are 30, 40, 50 points less than what a lender pulls, that is TOO big of a difference to be even general. It makes them useless in my mind.  If we can't rely on scores to some degree, then we are just taking shots in the dark while we build a stack of inquiries, and throw away money to these services to monitor them.

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I think that ultimately one of the big issues here is that the lending industry is going 29 different directions at once.

Even if FICO is left out of it entirely, the problem remains, for example because Amex and Chase may differ greatly on how to score a person's credit report.

Politicians could force the lending industry to use a single scoring model for everything, but that would deny freedom of choice.

If multiple scoring models are used, and every single one of them is made available for free to consumers, there would still be huge levels of confusion about which score is "right".

Having said all this, I do think it's quite possible to avoid most of the pitfalls, simply by becoming better informed, and focusing on report content rather than scores.

[tieton]

There are no easy answers, that is for sure. What I've done in the last several years, is just simply call up and speak with a rep. I give them a quick run-down of my credit report and ask them if I should bother applying or not. Of course there are A LOT of misinformed people out there that try to give an answer, or you get the "Well you should just apply and see what happens." LOL, I feel like I get some form of that answer quite often. I don't want to just "apply and see what happens!" I want to make an informed decision, so that I'm not making myself look like I'm going crazy applying for credit lines and tanking my rating. So, it can be difficult even if you try to do some pre-application recon. I think you're right though. With all the variation in modeling, it is impossible to know. The best you can do is just pay attention to the content of the report and work on the things that you are able and let time do the rest. I suppose in the time we live in, we are actually pretty lucky compared to 15 or 20 years ago. I've never been such an obsessed credit Nazi as I am now. We have the ability to access our reports and some version of our scores daily if we choose. Back then we didn't have that commodity. On the other hand, people didn't check credit for everyting under the sun like they do these days either.

[virgo]

The main problem is that when someone applies on line, and i venture a guess that 99% of people onlyapply on line, the first thing that the computer sees is that pesky number.  So in that regard the number does count.

That is why u see so many turn arounds on manual revue. 

I totally understand that the number is for educational p urposes, but if Fico is the end all and be all of scores, and no one else is using the same model how is that educational?  

If the margin in my scores were my blood pressure, I would be on life support. 

I did an independant survey of major and minor creditors in order to compile a list of those who use Fico 08, and not one of them knew what scoring model they use and all  of them blamed it on whats in my credit report   . 

Several articles, including one on the Huffington Report, are quoting that Fair Issac as saying there are 7600 creditors using  Fico 08.  7600?  I couldn't find one.

[Revelate]

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@bigjim1 wrote:

it amazes me how all of you so called contributors (facilitators) keep saying that the scores are this sight are valid and that I quote (90%) of the top lenders use these myfico model for mortgages, well i purposely had my credit pulled by 3 different top lenders in the industry 1.  Wells Fargo 2. Quicken Loans 3.  Lending tree amazing all of them came up with the same scores which were at least 50-60 points below myfico.  They ALL obviously use the same scoring module which is obviusly different than myfico. So you can keep telling people these are valid scores and that there are so many different scoring models etc......but the bottom line is as a consumer since there are over 300 different fico's and we can only see 2, and they are all "WEIGHTED" differently and this is one of the only 2 we can see then,  that this module is of NO VALUE to us as individuals consumers. 

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Shopping for a mortgage is the one and only place where lenders use the same scores: it is mandated by the GSE's (Fannie and Freddie) and FHA so that their underwriting standards meet the qualification to either sell to the GSE's or be insured.  The vast majority if not all mortgages including the less common ones (jumbo, USDA, VA) likely still use the standard scores.

From your post regarding Quicken being only mortgage, I'm assuming that you were shopping for a mortgage from all 3 places, and as such that is why your score matches across all three.

Unfortunately (speaking as a consumer) myFICO thought it was a good idea to upgrade their Equifax product from '04 to '08: prior to this the Equifax '04 (Equifax Beacon 5.0 to be precise) score formerly sold here would've matched identically the Equifax scores you were given by the mortgage lenders.  That is sadly no longer the case.

To be honest, I'd simply pick a single score as your benchmark and go on with life (there's enough freebie FICO's that pretty much every user of this forum should have access to at least one) and then focus on the report rather than the score as a pretty report will result in a pretty score regardless of which algorithm is selected.  If you need more granularity than that, then Scorewatch is a good product as long as you can accept that there's several dozen of FICO scores available, and even in common use there's roughly 18, and as such your individual FICO score isn't guarunteed to match.