Equifax score Vs Identity Gaurd score

[Anonymous]

I purchased equifax scorepower for one time. It shows my  score as 656.

I also purchased Identity Gaurd ( gives credit score from three agencies)from costco 5 days after i purchased equifax scorepower. Identity Gaurd shows my Equifax score as 633. Why there is so much difference. There is not much difference from credit reports. I thought my score has improved when i saw 656.

similar thing happened 4 months back. When i checked my score from TransUnion, it showed 689.But when the mortgage lender cheked my report,it showed as 656.Why there is much difference when we check for credit score from single agency.

Did anybody has this kind of experience??

What should i do now. can i call equifax and talk to them.
If somebody is planing for mortgage, if they check score from only one agency, then thats not good, they need to check 3-in-1 report/score.

[haulingthescoreup]

The only scores that are going to do you any good are FICO scores. Your EQ Score Watch score is a FICO score, as is any score bought on this site.

Scores from anywhere else, including directly from TU and EX, and from credit monitoring sites, are not FICO's. They use a whole different set of scoring guidelines. Since almost no lenders use them, I don't know why they even create them, other than to make money off of consumers. On these forums, the slang for these scores is "FAKO's."

So cheer up, your true (FICO) EQ score is 656. The credit monitoring service you bought is useful for following your credit REPORTS, to make sure that everything is correct, and to see when important new information gets posted. But ignore the scores AND the advice that comes along with them, which is often harmful to your FICO scores.

Whenever anyone is getting ready to apply for a mortgage, it is a good idea to pull all three FICO scores from this site. Mortgage lenders commonly pull all three also, and base their lending decisions on the middle score.

You should check out the Credit Scoring 101 thread at the top of this forum. It's a really weird and confusing world here, and it's a really good idea to get some basic information first. Good luck on the mortgage!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Hauling for your information.  From where these mortgage lenders pullup the 3 scores ( is it from this site?)

[haulingthescoreup]

I doubt that they actually use this site. They probably have a contract with Fair Isaac Corp (=FICO) and request them via another route. But the scores they pull are FICO.

Sometimes mortgage lenders call them Beacon scores, or classic FICO, but they are the same thing. I'm guessing that since your mortgage lender showed an EQ score of 656, which is what you pulled yourself, the two of you are talking about the same thing.

Always a good idea to call him/ her tomorrow and confirm!

[Anonymous]

No My mortgage lender did nt pull out 656 from equifax.Let me explain the whole thing,

3 months back on 07/27/2007, i checked my FICO score from Trans union. It was 680. I thought its ok to buy a home now. on 8/2/2007, mortgage lender pulled the 3 scores and they were EQ-621 EX-659 TU-656.i was shocked to see that TU score was 656. Difference of 24 points. I was needed 4 more points to get good rate. Recently on 10/19/07 when i pulled EQ score it was 656. On 10/22 i pulled 3 scores from IdentityGaurd and it shows EQ - 633 EX-661 TU-653. My TU score has decreased by 3 points. I am confused now which one i need to use to track my score. My mortgage lender has nt pulled out the report recently.

[haulingthescoreup]

OK, sorry, I see now--got a bit tangled up! Don't worry about what Identity Guard says about your TU (or any other score.) Your lender isn't going to be using that one. Go ahead and erase them from your brain. They're just causing confusion. You might call your lender and ask (to confirm) if the 621 - 659 - 656 were FICO's. (Remember, the lender might use the term "Beacon scores."

If your EQ FICO is now 656 (presumably up from 621), your other scores might well have come up as well. You can expect your lender to pull all three again when the time comes. If I were you, I would do this:

--As above, call and confirm that those three scores were FICO as of 8-2-07.
--Go ahead and pull your EX and TU scores from this site to add to the 10-19 EQ score. Now you can see if there has been enough improvement to get you closer to where you want to be for a mortgage.
--Start doing your homework! (as below)

On another site, you mentioned that you have $1800 (I think it was) spread over three cards. If you will read the Credit Scoring 101 thread, listed at the top of this forum, you will learn how quickly you can improve your scores by letting your cards report the ideal 1 - 9% util (utilization = balance posted divided by credit limit.) Since I don't know what your credit limits are, I have no idea what that $1800 represents. But say that Card A has a $5K CL, Card B has a $2.5 CL, and Card C has a $500 limit. If you can get Card A to report a balance of $450 or less, Card B to report a balance of $225 or less, AND Card C to report a balance of $45 or less, your scores ought to show a real jump. Even if you can't get them all down right away, they need to all be under 50% of their respective CL's.

But you need to know when your CCC's report to the CRA's, what figure they report when they do, and how to make the right figure report, and then pay it off to avoid finance charges. Plus you can use your Identity Guard reports --the reports, not the scores!!! --to see if there is something else you can quickly fix or improve before you go in and ask for that loan. I can't emphasize enough, you MUST do some reading here. Other people can't do it for you.

[Anonymous]

Once again thank you very much Hauling.

As of today, Status of my CCs after  I have paid some balance 2 weeks back

One CC - Balance - $1,023.88

                 Cl - $20,000.00

                 Util - 5%

second CC - Balance - $590.00

                     CL - $6,600.00

                     Util - 8.9%

Third CC - Bal - $371.04

                  CL - $7,000.00

                  Util - 5.3%

Hope this will improve my score this month.

[Anonymous]

I have also read credit score 101 thread completely before I created this thread. One important i did not know was utilization should be below 10% if we want to improve score drastically.

[haulingthescoreup]

Aha, you're good to go, then! Once all that posts, if you don't have a bunch of other stuff going on, I'll bet you'll have some nice scores to work with.

And as for the 1 - 9%, it gets even better --apparently if you have more than 5 or 6 revolving TL's, only half should report at a time, and on and on. I'm not sure that some really bright 12-year-old isn't making all this up just to mess with our minds.

I sort of accidentally wound up with a $30K CL on one card, and it's kind of a scramble to get $300+ on it per month. (I work two jobs, so I don't have time to buy stuff!) But I'm experimenting with having almost everything report at $0 this cycle, so at least I don't have to keep charging my large diet Cokes, extra ice...

[Anonymous]

I just checked the report given by mortgage lender.

It says

XPN - Experian/Fair, Isaac model - 659

EFX - Equifax Beacon 5.0 - 621

TUC - FICO Classic 2004 - 656