Let me first say that I consider myself a self proclaimed expert on any subject matter having to do with credit scores and agencies and such. That is not to brag, that is only to say I have a very good understanding of how the entire system works and have been able to use this knowledge to manipulate my scores perfectly using "their" system to my advantage over the last 10 years. So I am constantly perplexed by this one thing and I can't seem to figure out why! Research has never shown anything except what I say below, which doesn't apply.
FICO score 8. Previous chats on this topic revolve around each reporting agencies own scoring models which we know of course nobody pays attention to
(even though it is a general guideline) and no lender actually uses but at least you can understand why the scores were different from one credit reporting agency to the other.
But technically model 8 is model 8 and now we are dealing with a consistent scoring model. So all 3 agencies should have the exact score within a couple points or so IF they all have the exact same information and as such there shouldn't be that much of a variance.
So does anybody have a rational explanation why TU would be 761, Equifax 759 but yet Experian 701? We are not talking about a few points here or even a dozen points, were talking about a whopping 50 to 60 points as if Experian was showing something much different than the other two or even a collection agency.
But that is simply not the case and all three of them are showing the exact same information more or less and the few little tiny things that it's off surely should not affect my score 50 to 60 points!!!
This is not a one time issue because I have been experiencing this for many many years with Experian always lower than anyone else. Always but always.
Personally I think Experian is just screwed up and they are using some kind of a different system regardless of the fact that they are supposed to be using a consistent model but having doubts or confusion about something I consider myself well versed in is driving me crazy!
Not to mention it's upsetting because they are obviously messing with my credit rating not doing what they are supposed to be doing showing me lower than I should be.
To make it worse, in the oldie but goodie golden years everybody but everybody used Equifax and they were the king and very few worried about that the other two but it seems that has changed in the last 10 years (I am taking a wild guess) and Equifax iseems to be the least used bureau and lenders are gravitating towards using Trans Union and Experian instead. I'm sure it has something to do with cost.
Bottom line can anybody help me with this or have a good reason why this would be happening? Now again keep in mind we are using score 8 as the model so you can't say its going to differ for each company because it doesn't when you use the same model and that ONLY applies when they are using a proprietary model.
Equifax and Trans Union being only two points apart is proof of that
FICO score 8. Previous chats on this topic revolve around each reporting agencies own scoring models which we know of course nobody pays attention to
(even though it is a general guideline) and no lender actually uses but at least you can understand why the scores were different from one credit reporting agency to the other.
But technically model 8 is model 8 and now we are dealing with a consistent scoring model. So all 3 agencies should have the exact score within a couple points or so IF they all have the exact same information and as such there shouldn't be that much of a variance.
So does anybody have a rational explanation why TU would be 761, Equifax 759 but yet Experian 701? We are not talking about a few points here or even a dozen points, were talking about a whopping 50 to 60 points as if Experian was showing something much different than the other two or even a collection agency.
But that is simply not the case and all three of them are showing the exact same information more or less and the few little tiny things that it's off surely should not affect my score 50 to 60 points!!!
This is not a one time issue because I have been experiencing this for many many years with Experian always lower than anyone else. Always but always.
Personally I think Experian is just screwed up and they are using some kind of a different system regardless of the fact that they are supposed to be using a consistent model but having doubts or confusion about something I consider myself well versed in is driving me crazy!
Not to mention it's upsetting because they are obviously messing with my credit rating not doing what they are supposed to be doing showing me lower than I should be.
To make it worse, in the oldie but goodie golden years everybody but everybody used Equifax and they were the king and very few worried about that the other two but it seems that has changed in the last 10 years (I am taking a wild guess) and Equifax iseems to be the least used bureau and lenders are gravitating towards using Trans Union and Experian instead. I'm sure it has something to do with cost.
Bottom line can anybody help me with this or have a good reason why this would be happening? Now again keep in mind we are using score 8 as the model so you can't say its going to differ for each company because it doesn't when you use the same model and that ONLY applies when they are using a proprietary model.
Equifax and Trans Union being only two points apart is proof of that
@Anonymous wrote:
Let me first say that I consider myself a self proclaimed expert on any subject matter having to do with credit scores and agencies and such. That is not to brag, that is only to say I have a very good understanding of how the entire system works and have been able to use this knowledge to manipulate my scores perfectly using "their" system to my advantage over the last 10 years. So I am constantly perplexed by this one thing and I can't seem to figure out why! Research has never shown anything except what I say below, which doesn't apply.
But technically model 8 is model 8 and now we are dealing with a consistent scoring model. So all 3 agencies should have the exact score within a couple points or so IF they all have the exact same information and as such there shouldn't be that much of a variance.
So does anybody have a rational explanation why TU would be 761, Equifax 759 but yet Experian 701? We are not talking about a few points here or even a dozen points, were talking about a whopping 50 to 60 points as if Experian was showing something much different than the other two or even a collection agency.
But that is simply not the case and all three of them are showing the exact same information more or less and the few little tiny things that it's off surely should not affect my score 50 to 60 points!!!
This is not a one time issue because I have been experiencing this for many many years with Experian always lower than anyone else. Always but always.
Bottom line can anybody help me with this or have a good reason why this would be happening? Now again keep in mind we are using score 8 as the model so you can't say its going to differ for each company because it doesn't when you use the same model and that ONLY applies when they are using a proprietary model.
Equifax and Trans Union being only two points apart is proof of that
For the record CRAs can and do tweak the Fico 8 algorithm to best suit their purposes. Fair Isaac allows for minor tweaking by CRAs. CRA tweaking can and often does account for 10 point differences on Fico 8 among the CRSAs. After VantageScore rolled out their VS3 model - which showed more consistent scores among CRAs than Fico 8, VS tried to exploit the Fico score differences to gain market share. Fair Isaac responded to that and other VS features when they rolled out Fico 9. Under Fico 9 almost all CRA tweaking is forbidden. Thus, if CRA reports are "identical" Fico 9 scores will show less variability among CRAs relative to Fico 8.
Getting back to your question, your Fico 8 scores should be within 20 points of each other - IF your files are identical. Therefore, the accounts listed in your files are not identical. In the case of Experian, there has to be a significant difference. Since we are talking Fico 8 here, a few things to look for are:
1. Do you have any charge offs? If so, Fico 8 considers medical charge offs differently than non medical ones. Assuming the charge off shows on all reports, perhaps it is coded non medical on EX but medical on EQ and TU. That could have a 50 to 60 point impact on score.
2. Do you have a derogatory or public record on your Experian report that does not show on EQ or TU?
3. Do you have accounts with lates in your credit history? Is the most severe late [90, 60, 30 days] the same on all CRA reports. Also, is the most recent late dated the same on all reports. Differences in the severity and newness of lates can easily translate to a 50 to 60 point difference.
4. Do you have an open installment loan and if so is the original loan amount listed the same on all reports? For example, If you have a $10k loan with $0.8 k remaining but EX lists the loan as $1k the high B/L ratio (80%) vs 8% in reality could cost 30 points.
5. Do you have a single open loan that somehow shows closed on EX but open on EQ and TU?
6. I had a situation with Best Buy where they switched from Cap One to CBNA to manage their CC portfolio. Both the Cap One and CBNA accounts are on my file. The cool thing (well maybe not so cool) is two CRAs list the active CBNA card as open and the CAp One as closed. However, the 3rd CRA lists the Cap One account as open and CBNA as closed. Low and behold by aggregate CL is missing the CL associated with the active CBNA account.
7. Do you have any AU cards? If so, is an AU card your oldest account or highest CL? It is possible under Fico 8 for AU cards to be excluded from influence on score and that may be CRA specific.
If you have not done so, I would suggest pulling a 3B report. Since your credit scores are under 800, the report will list 4 reason codes for things that are negatively impacting your score for each CRA. Compare the top two reasons associated with your EX score to TU and EQ. That will give you insight into what is different with your EX accounts relative to EQ/TU.
For a $1 trial 14 day membership, I highly recommend signing up for PrivacyGuard. As part of that membership you gain access to CreditXpert which includes a lot of nice features. One built in feature is "compare" which does an analysis of all three CRAs by account and provides a summary listing of differences.
Well of course gentleman I have hard copies of my credit report as that would be the only way I could make the statement that everything is identical
Actually I am a member of all three CRA's as well as my FICO. Probably a big waste of money but.... it does come in handy. Let's see I'm at $1995 for Trans Union, $1995 for Equifax, $995 for Experian and $2999 for my FICO. So $80 month.
But to answer your question no sir, I have absolutely nothing negative whatsoever. That means nothing all, nada, clean as a whistle no charge-offs, no late payments, absolutely nothing. My credit report is spectacular and I have never once been late on absolutely anything.
But I am being told that I'm using too much of my credit lately and opening too many accounts. Even with all my knowledge there is still no reasoning or logic sometimes and it's amazing as I'll give you an example!
I normally ask for credit line increases about every 90 days like clockwork and so far everyone has been very nice and granted me increases that are anywhere from day a minimum of $1500 to some as much as $5000.
Discover I have found is the best card and I love those people and they give you regular credit line increases, significant ones, about every 90 days.
I have credit cards with everyone except Amex. To say Discover, 2 with Capital One, Bank of America, US Bank, 2 with Regions my bank and now my newly acquired Citibank platinum diamond preferred master card.
I got 3 of these cards within a 3 day timeframe and of course each one in succession started me off with a lower balance because I was getting more inquiries and they could see that I was out there applying for credit cards!
The first card gave me $5000, the second card $4000, the third card $2000, all within a few days of each other and others are couple years old but my point is I started getting warnings that I was using too much of my credit and I could also see multiple inquiries posted everywhere which was dropping my score a little bit. But back to my story as to how sometimes there is still no rhyme or reason...
So I asked Discover for an increase during this timeframe and where as they normally give me anywhere from $1000 to $5000, they only gave me $300 this time, again because obviously they can see what's going on out there in the credit card world.
No just about the time I realized I was pushing my luck too far and was fixing to screw up my credit if I didn't slow down some, I rested for a month or so, but couldn't take my eyes off of this Citibank platinum MasterCard diamond preferred (a ridiculously long name
Thinking I was probably going to be denied and knowing full well ahead of time that it was probably stupid to even apply, I just couldn't help myself!!!
30 seconds later I got approved with a starting balance of $10,500! Wow!!! The highest balance of any card I was initially approved for to date. I'm now in love with Citibank and will probably wind up giving them most of my business as they are also offering 18 months zero interest which is extremely impressive!
But in theory that should've never happened and makes no sense but I am very good about carrying around a 5% balance on all of my credit cards.
The only thing that's different between the CRA's is inquiries and inquiries account for 10% of your score, so in "theory" that could be in my case as much 70 points. But the truth is I've never seen a couple or few excessive inquiries affect the score that much at least not for me.
I get all of the same warnings, I'm utilizing too much credit lately and opening too many accounts.
The other one that burns my britches is I don't have a long enough credit history established and I don't know why they do that because I have accounts that are well over 10 years old but my credit cards are only within the last couple years and that may be what they're referring to.
Another thing that's totally wacko is in all of the score in all of the models across-the-board my lowest is my auto loan score!!!
Now that just goes to show how screwed up the thinking is in all of the systems because I have on the record paying OFF 3 auto loans, 60-72 months, not ONCE ever being late and I presently have a loan with Honda finance which is not for a car but for a $20,000 side-by-side but it showing up as a vehicle all the same and auto loans are also my oldest accounts going back over 10 years.
My point is if there was EVER one area that I should have my highest scoring it should be an auto loans and yet...
Somebody smarter than me is saying I'm not a good risk which is total lunacy because I have over $60,000 in available credit on credit cards alone which means I could BUY a car with my credit cards, but I'm not a good risk for auto loans? SMH.
But everything with the CRA's are identical. Same people, same balances, same everything. As I say the only thing different is inquiries.
I'm perplexed and always will be and I've tried calling Experian but that's a complete joke and everyone I speak to knows less about their own system that I do!!
They say things to me and I will say, that's totally inaccurate and that's not true at all but never mind have a good day and hang up on them.
I don't think I will get an answer from anybody ever but I will go ahead and log on one more time and do a comparison across-the-board and see what the deal is but last time I did it a few months ago I couldn't see anything except an added inquiry or two.
Well I wouldnt label it as much as being biased, even though I understand what you're saying, but that's probably not a good phrase because even though for you it may be Trans Union, it's still very factual that TU is reporting a lower score.
I could be wrong maybe I need to look up the definition of being biased but whenever I hear it, in my world I conclude that being biased means it's NOT factual but you have a tendency to think it is because it's happening to you LOL.
But if it really is happening to you then you are not being biased you are just stating the truth. Why do I say all this?
Because it's 230 in the morning, I cannot sleep, I'm recently retired and bored to death, and so I'm looking to cut hairs for the sake of conversation...
I could be wrong maybe I need to look up the definition of being biased but whenever I hear it, in my world I conclude that being biased means it's NOT factual but you have a tendency to think it is because it's happening to you LOL.
But if it really is happening to you then you are not being biased you are just stating the truth. Why do I say all this?
Because it's 230 in the morning, I cannot sleep, I'm recently retired and bored to death, and so I'm looking to cut hairs for the sake of conversation...
My lowest score is an auto score. Also, one of my highest scores is an auto score. However, with cars, you get to shop for the best rate, which means that you can use your best score if need be. You don't get that benefit with credit cards.
Mr. "self proclaimed credit expert" may be learning something new as I'm not aware of how I can use my highest score to shop for cars? Is there a secret I am unaware of here?
How can I use my score to get a car loan, as far as I know the lenders always will always pull their own report and won't take one In supply them with?!?!?
( i've tried a few times for kicks
How can I use my score to get a car loan, as far as I know the lenders always will always pull their own report and won't take one In supply them with?!?!?
( i've tried a few times for kicks
@Anonymous wrote:
But I am being told that I'm using too much of my credit lately and opening too many accounts. Even with all my knowledge there is still no reasoning or logic sometimes and it's amazing as I'll give you an example!
I normally ask for credit line increases about every 90 days like clockwork and so far everyone has been very nice and granted me increases that are anywhere from day a minimum of $1500 to some as much as $5000.
Discover I have found is the best card and I love those people and they give you regular credit line increases, significant ones, about every 90 days.
I have credit cards with everyone except Amex. To say Discover, 2 with Capital One, Bank of America, US Bank, 2 with Regions my bank and now my newly acquired Citibank platinum diamond preferred master card.
I got 3 of these cards within a 3 day timeframe and of course each one in succession started me off with a lower balance because I was getting more inquiries and they could see that I was out there applying for credit cards!
The first card gave me $5000, the second card $4000, the third card $2000, all within a few days of each other and others are couple years old but my point is I started getting warnings that I was using too much of my credit and I could also see multiple inquiries posted everywhere which was dropping my score a little bit. But back to my story as to how sometimes there is still no rhyme or reason...
So I asked Discover for an increase during this timeframe and where as they normally give me anywhere from $1000 to $5000, they only gave me $300 this time, again because obviously they can see what's going on out there in the credit card world.
The only thing that's different between the CRA's is inquiries and inquiries account for 10% of your score, so in "theory" that could be in my case as much 70 points. But the truth is I've never seen a couple or few excessive inquiries affect the score that much at least not for me.
I get all of the same warnings, I'm utilizing too much credit lately and opening too many accounts.
The other one that burns my britches is I don't have a long enough credit history established and I don't know why they do that because I have accounts that are well over 10 years old but my credit cards are only within the last couple years and that may be what they're referring to.
Another thing that's totally wacko is in all of the score in all of the models across-the-board my lowest is my auto loan score!!!
Now that just goes to show how screwed up the thinking is in all of the systems because I have on the record paying OFF 3 auto loans,
60-72 months, not ONCE ever being late and I presently have a loan with Honda finance which is not for a car but for a $20,000 side-by-side but it showing up as a vehicle all the same and auto loans are also my oldest accounts going back over 10 years.
My point is if there was EVER one area that I should have my highest scoring it should be an auto loans and yet...
Somebody smarter than me is saying I'm not a good risk which is total lunacy because I have over $60,000 in available credit on credit cards alone which means I could BUY a car with my credit cards, but I'm not a good risk for auto loans? SMH.
But everything with the CRA's are identical. Same people, same balances, same everything. As I say the only thing different is inquiries.
I'm perplexed and always will be and I've tried calling Experian but that's a complete joke and everyone I speak to knows less about their own system that I do!!
They say things to me and I will say, that's totally inaccurate and that's not true at all but never mind have a good day and hang up on them.
I don't think I will get an answer from anybody ever but I will go ahead and log on one more time and do a comparison across-the-board and see what the deal is but last time I did it a few months ago I couldn't see anything except an added inquiry or two.
It appears you may have partially answered your own question - inquiries differ among your reports significantly. I would be interested in seeing a summary table showing # inquiries under 12 months age by CRA and # inquiries under 60 days by CRA. Why 60 days? - the 60 day subset may come into play in conjunction with too many accounts opened recently as a seperate attribute.
Another thing that may come into play is: Consumer Finance Company Accounts (CFA). Those are looked at negatively from a Fico score perspective because big data shows a correlation in aggregate. Fico checks for CFAs in your credit history - both open and closed. Perhaps Experian has labeled one or more of your loans as a CFA while the other CRAs did not.
Side question: What is the current balance to loan ratio on your Honda finance account?
Pasted below are a few reason statements that likely apply to your situation.
I didn't see anything pasted below? Honda was $17500 financed I owe $12500. Two months ago I made a $2000 payment to lower it a little bit.
All of my credit cards depending on whether or not I'm in "tweak for score mood" don't normally run over 10% and it really helps when I get credit cards with high limits to lower my debt to credit ratio.
But again this is another area that upsets me. Let me some facts. I only have Honda and the rest are credit cards no other credit for me. Showed Honda above so here is my credit cards.
Before I list I forgot to add this story as just another piece to the puzzle like the example I gave with Citibank as it was pure stupidity!! But actually thIs story is even funnier and more bizarre!
After receiving my Citibank card for $10,500, I asked for a credit line increase with my Amazon store card the same day. THEY DENIED ME even though I pay the balance off every month!!! Card is six months old and has a stinking $3,000 limit. From $10,500 to no credit line increase figure that out!
But the story gets more bizarre... The day I applied for the Amazon card they gave me $1700 and I was very offended because it was so low and they asked me to log into my Amazon account where I do about $50,000 a year in purchases. (Self employed) Within minutes of getting approved I immediately called to see if I could get them to raise the limit because I really felt that for my scores and situation they should've given me much more and instead I got the computer system and one of the option was to increase your limit so I said yes and it asked me how large of a purchase I wanted to make and I said $3000. You guessed it, wham!!!! Just like that they approve me at $1700 and 5 mins later the automated system raises me to $3000?!! SAY WHAT?!?
Six months later I asked for an increase and they tell me NO same day Citi say YES. Crazy just crazy. To make it worse there a 24 /7 department and I had to speak to a person who turned me down and I have yet been able to access the computer automated system again and I can't figure out how I ever got it the first time because I have tried calling 1 million times to see if I can bypass the human and get to the computer system which I find is more lenient than a human for some dumb reason even though I'm sure they both use the same computer system. It was like some kind of magical portal through time that I got the automated version...
Amazon Store Card $3000
BOA $4,000
Cap One $5000
Cap One $7,500
Citibank $10,500
Discover $10,600
US Bank $ 2,000 (biz)
Regions $11,000 (biz)
Regions $10,000 (biz)
The ones with biz do not report to my personal only my business. So $40,600 in available credit that appears on my CRA's.
Currently I'm not really in tweak mood so I'm at about $5000 total charged or maybe 12%-13% which is higher than it needs to be but as I say I'm not looking to tweak it right now. Advice to everyone out there if you don't already know this.
Don't pay the entire balance off as believe it or not carrying a 3% to 5% balance is a higher score than a zero balance so if you have a $500 balance for Discover, only pay $400 and leave $100 there.
Anyway back to what upsets me. I normally pick one card and I don't distribute it so my cap one card with a $5000 limit I have about $3,000 charged and the orher $2,000 distributed evenly amongst all the other cards are about $500 each.
So even though it's "supposed" to be TOTAL debt to credit ratio and even though that extra $2500 on the capital one card only affects a $40,000 available 6% when I am in tweak mood that basically means about 7% total which is beautiful and perfect.
But....when it actually posts and shows an increased balance for that ONE SEPERATE CC, my score will drop 10 to 15 points which tells me they're not basing it on total ONLY but also in the algorithms they are doing the scoring on each separate card as well because I can tell you that taking your total balance from 4% to 6% doesn't really affect your score that much.
Sometime tonight I will logon and take a look at each report separately and I get unlimited reports so I can get them all current and I will post the results here to see what the differences are
Something worth mentioning is the Citibank diamond preferred is one heck of a good card and in addition to it being 0% interest for 18 months and or 0% transfers for 18 months it comes with a crap load of perks and privileges and had they not sent me a preapproved offer I would've never thought of applying!
If you have good enough credit I would highly recommend this card. I love the fact that it comes with checks that are good for 120 days and you can make the check out to yourself and deposit the entire balance into your checking account!
I would never do it but that's one heck of a benefit if you happen to be short of cash because I don't know too many cards that would let you take $10,000 and deposit it directly into your checking account and that means that Citibank is trusting you and I love companies that trust you (like discover) because that makes you want to be more loyal and trustworthy back by making sure you pay them
Something very important I left out as there are 2 main reasons that I am also a separate member of the CRA's. If you're trying to clean up your credit or tweak it it is just about mandatory that you do all four like I am doing. Being a member of all three combined with MyFICO is win win and they all complement each other in ways that they cannot do on their own.
First you get unlimited reports so you can always update and have a fresh report which is extremely important when you are trying to manipulate your score or if you happen to be unfortunate and have negative items it lets you know when it clears out instantly.
Now this next one is a little upsetting because this information SHOULD be supplied by my FICO's version of the three reports.... but it does not and if you're trying to tweak your score its not just important but is absolutely mandatory.
The reports that they show here do NOT have the dates that each lender posts!!! Knowing this information is extremely valuable as you know when to make payments im time for it to update instantly to the CRA'a. And then being able to pull unlimited reports you can see everything happening in real time.
Why my FICO's Version does not show it I do not know and one day when I have nothing to do I will call them and bring it to their attention. Now luckily it's normally the same date every month for each lender within 2 to 3 days at most. So once you have the information it's easy to write it down and keep it in mind but in theory even being a member of MyFICO AND getting fresh reports it would still force you to at least have to pay to get ONE report from each CRA in order to obtain that information and that's not fair for us!
In short the information reported by the CRA's is when posted here by MyFICO should be absolutely identical!
When you have this information you can actually do something that's similar to floating bad checks! To say if you know it's going to post on the 15th then you could make a large payment on the 12th and then on the 15th you can use that card and take your money right back if you follow me! If you use your card to pay bills you just switch cards and it's much easier to do that way.
So this way you can have your " cake and eat it too "' and have your score look really beautiful while at the same time being able to charge as much as you want without having it affect your score and having another 30 day cycle to pay that balance back down after you grab it!!!
Which in theory could mean using another card to pay that card. Now I don't really recommend this as sooner or later you have to pay the piper iso you have to make sure you have enough real money to actually pay the balance off at some point and in my case I always do so I'm not worried about it and in fact that's not really something that I have ever done because it's a lot of effort, but my point is is that you can do it if you know that date each month that my MyFICO does NOT supply which in theory could mean having to pay each CRA separately to get a report to ascertain that information. And that is not something that should happen and that's not fair to us.