@Anonymous wrote:It's not enough to know that FICO is more used than any other scoring company (the answer is obvious). Your own FICO can vary by more than 100 pts depending on which credit bureau you're looking at as well as which scoring model. The variance is just as high as when comparing FAKO to any of your FICO scores, and hence cannot be relied upon. The best you can do is know which specific scoring model is mostly used and then use that as a guideline. If you're concerned about getting a mortgage, this scoring model is much different than for credit cards, or an auto, etc. The point is, everything is in context and a specific FAKO score has roughly equal informational value as any random FICO specific model score, as each one can be just as innacurate when it comes to what you're applying for. If you really want to know your overall credit health, its not enough to pay attention to only one scoring model/methodology.
^ Quite true. Fico scores can and do vary substantially among the various models. Each CRA was granted the ability to tweak the varoius Fico scoring algorithms to suit their specific taste up to and including Fico 8. For the most part this "tweaking" was eliminated with the Fico 9 rollout. The VantageScore algorithm is applied uniformly by the CRAs. No surprise here as the three CRAs jointly developed the model.
The older Fico models used for mortgages typically treat collections and lates more harshly than the newer Fico 8 and Fico 9 models. In some cases newer models may ignore a collection if it is paid and/or a small $$$ amount. As a result, it is not uncommon for profiles a small collection and possibly an islotaed 30 day late to score 100 points lower on the older Fico 04 and Fico 98 models (relative to Fico 8 or Fico 9).
Even those with clean files and identical information on all three CRA reports can experience large differences in Fico scores. This happened to me when I let all six of my cards report small balances - result pasted below. [for reference VantageScore 3.0 scores remained stready in the low 830s]. Key point is to know what flavor of Fico and what CRA (or CRAs) your creditor plans to pull your score/report from.
Pre qualification letters for credit cards are generally not the same as pre-approvals. If you get a pre-qual letter and then apply for a card, there is usually a HP for a credit check as part of the approval process which includes a Fico score "review". Best I can tell is VS3 is used for establishing pre-qual solicitation lists but Fico and/or internal models along with income info are used for approvals.
