FICO score and TransUnion score use same data but are off by 26 points?

[tjbartjr]

This seems like an odd situation to me: "Your FICO® Score 8, based on TransUnion data and last updated 05/04/2023" is 788"...but my score from TransUnion is 814 (VantageScore 3.0). My scores from Experian and Equifax are aligned with the TransUnion score at 815 and 818, respectively.

Why would two scores from the same company (presumably) using the same underlying data be off by almost 30 points? That's a significant delta, and he difference between very good and exceptional. And what, if anything, can I do to bring the scores into alignment? It's not like you can dispute a credit score.

[GZG]

---

@tjbartjr wrote:

This seems like an odd situation to me: "Your FICO® Score 8, based on TransUnion data and last updated 05/04/2023" is 788"...but my score from TransUnion is 814 (VantageScore 3.0). My scores from Experian and Equifax are aligned with the TransUnion score at 815 and 818, respectively.

Why would two scores from the same company (presumably) using the same underlying data be off by almost 30 points? That's a significant delta, and he difference between very good and exceptional. And what, if anything, can I do to bring the scores into alignment? It's not like you can dispute a credit score.

---

because it's not the same company

FICO is taking the data from your Transunion report and calculating a score using their scoring system

VantageScore is taking the data from your Transunion report and calculating a score using their different scoring system

They're two completely different scoring systems. 

The good news is that it doesn't really matter, 788 and 815 should practically afford you any lending that any creditor is willing to give to you. If you want to tell us more about your profile, we can tell you what you could do to potentially get up above 800, although most of those suggestions might just be "let your accounts get older"

[Anonymalous]

At the end of last month, my Equifax FICO 8 was 735 and my Equifax VS 3.0 was 796, a difference of 61 points.

As @GZG mentioned, they're completely different models. And in my case, the rather extreme difference is because one was reporting a new (high) balance and the other was not. But even so, they typically differ by almost 50 points. The same is true with my FICO 8 and FICO 9 scores (my FICO 9s are higher).

If you really want to dive into the credit scoring rabbit hole, there are well over 40 different scores, and each weighs different factors in different ways. There are older mortgage models, newer trending models, and in between there numerous different versions, many with industry-specific variations like bankcard and auto scores; and even with the same model and version, each credit bureau generates their numbers in slightly different ways based on different underlying data

https://www.myfico.com/credit-education/credit-scores/fico-score-versions

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Credit-Scoring-Primer-pub-5-17-20/td-p/6...