@smallfry wrote:
Equifax. The CRA that keeps on taking. People complain about Experian? Equifax is the worst.
Each simply weights the same set of factors somewhat differently, but Fair Isaac scales their scoring model such that the overall distributions are actually nearly identical for all three CRAs. What will differ is where you will happen to land due to the different weights, kinda like three different college Professors who all shoot for the same overall B-minus average but one gives higher weight to homework and classroom participation, one emphasizes the term paper, and one emphasizes examination scores. In my case, my EX happens to be the highest and my TU the lowest, but for somebody else the order could be different.
The consensus of many on this board is that EX places more emphasis on percent utilization (total balance on revolving accounts divided by total available credit limits), EQ places more emphasis on the total amount owed on revolving accounts, and TU places more emphasis on number of accounts showing a balance. So having very high limits on credit cards will help the EX score more than it will the others, while having very low limits on credit cards will hurt the EX score more than it will the others.
All three CRAs will of course consider late payments, collections, bankruptcies, and so forth to be negative factors and consider a higher average age of accounts a positive factor.
TU 791 02/11/2013, EQ 800 1/29/2011 , EX Plus FAKO 812, EX Vantage Score 955 3/19/2010 wife's EQ 9/23/2009 803
EX always was my highest when we could pull all three
Always remember: big print giveth, small print taketh away
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