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Equifax considerably lower than TU and EX, any ideas?

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Anonymous
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Equifax considerably lower than TU and EX, any ideas?

I hope this is the right forum for this question!

 

Relatively recently, sometime last month, I got a massive score increase on both TU and EX, like ~30 points on each. The only reasonable explanation of this is that I was added as an authorized user on my dad's Chase Slate, which is a 19+ year old 20k line, compared to most of my under 1 year accounts. MyFico 3B monitoring didn't alert me when this was added to my report, the large score jump was shown when some balances updated, but the timing would make sense, and again this AU account is the only major change to my reports that I think could result in such a large boost.

 

What I don't understand is why my EQ didn't get the same boost at the others. It's hard to say exactly because the monitoring doesn't show the new account being added, and I mean scores change constantly, but in between my TU going up 27 points and EX going up 32, I did get a 14 point boost on EQ, so I assume that would probably be the AU account showing up. I just don't understand why the boost would be so much less.

 

Currently my scores are 717 for EQ, 748 for TU, and 749 for EX.

 

I just pulled my reports from CreditCheck Total since they have that deal running. All three reports seem to be essentially the same, I mean I don't notice any accounts missing from any of them, utilization is close to the same on all of them, everything has an on time payment record with no negatives. The only difference between them is inquiries, and Experian has the most there, yet it's my highest score... I have 8 on Equifax, 4 on TransUnion, and 12 on Experian.

 

Oldest account is 19.7 years, AAoA is 2.2 years, and that's the same across all 3. Available credit is 61k on all 3, with just over 3k debt reporting, 3.4k on TU.

 

Equifax has also been my lowest score in general, even before the recent jump on the other two. In April for instance, I had around 665, 689, and 709, respectively. Looking back it's always the lowest.

 

Is there any notable reasons why it would be so different? Do different bureaus value things differently? I thought that was all up to FICO, meaning if the reports show the same thing the score should be essentially the same. Any input would be greatly appreciated! And if there's any other info needed to clarify, or something I can look for to identify the cause, please let me know!

 

Thanks!

Message 1 of 5
4 REPLIES 4
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Equifax considerably lower than TU and EX, any ideas?

Sorry to bump, but any chance someone has input on this?

Message 2 of 5
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Equifax considerably lower than TU and EX, any ideas?

Message 3 of 5
cashnocredit
Valued Contributor

Re: Equifax considerably lower than TU and EX, any ideas?


@Anonymous wrote:

I hope this is the right forum for this question!

 

Relatively recently, sometime last month, I got a massive score increase on both TU and EX, like ~30 points on each. The only reasonable explanation of this is that I was added as an authorized user on my dad's Chase Slate, which is a 19+ year old 20k line, compared to most of my under 1 year accounts. MyFico 3B monitoring didn't alert me when this was added to my report, the large score jump was shown when some balances updated, but the timing would make sense, and again this AU account is the only major change to my reports that I think could result in such a large boost.

 

What I don't understand is why my EQ didn't get the same boost at the others. It's hard to say exactly because the monitoring doesn't show the new account being added, and I mean scores change constantly, but in between my TU going up 27 points and EX going up 32, I did get a 14 point boost on EQ, so I assume that would probably be the AU account showing up. I just don't understand why the boost would be so much less.

 

Currently my scores are 717 for EQ, 748 for TU, and 749 for EX.

 

I just pulled my reports from CreditCheck Total since they have that deal running. All three reports seem to be essentially the same, I mean I don't notice any accounts missing from any of them, utilization is close to the same on all of them, everything has an on time payment record with no negatives. The only difference between them is inquiries, and Experian has the most there, yet it's my highest score... I have 8 on Equifax, 4 on TransUnion, and 12 on Experian.

 

Oldest account is 19.7 years, AAoA is 2.2 years, and that's the same across all 3. Available credit is 61k on all 3, with just over 3k debt reporting, 3.4k on TU.

 

Equifax has also been my lowest score in general, even before the recent jump on the other two. In April for instance, I had around 665, 689, and 709, respectively. Looking back it's always the lowest.

 

Is there any notable reasons why it would be so different? Do different bureaus value things differently? I thought that was all up to FICO, meaning if the reports show the same thing the score should be essentially the same. Any input would be greatly appreciated! And if there's any other info needed to clarify, or something I can look for to identify the cause, please let me know!

 

Thanks!


That's actually how VantageScore works. It's designed specifically to try to score identically if the same information is present at each CRA.  FICO tunes the score algorithm for the dataset each of the CRAs has. Each CRA historically has different reporting and though the differences have diminished there are still many variations from long ago. FICO's stated reason for tayloring their scores to each CRA is that these small differences make their score more predictive. The larger reason is that they can't create scoring algorithms for one CRA including data from different CRAs. VantageScore, OTOH, is done by a consortium that uses tens of millions of credit files across all three CRAs.

 

So there are differences between CRAs even for the same model of FICO score.

 

For instance EQ's FICO 8 includes American Express charge card balances in overall utilization and uses the high balance as a proxy for CL. TU and EX ignore charge card balances.   I've had EQ FICO 8 diverge downward 40 points from the other scores when a particularly large Amex balance hit. There may well also be something different in how they treat AUs.


I have reestablished credit over the last couple years
so my moniker is, well, rather out of date.

WM Discover $1800, WF Plat 12k, Chase Freedom Siggy18k, Amex Plat (60k H/B), Citi AA EWMC 25k
Message 4 of 5
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Equifax considerably lower than TU and EX, any ideas?

Thank you both for the replies, I really appreciate it. I'll read through that thread regarding AUs more thoroughly when I have a chance as it sounds very relevant, just been a busy weekend.

 

@cashnocredit, thank you very much for the input, that's all good to know. Smiley Happy

Message 5 of 5
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