Help on Score Difference

[Anonymous]

In preparation for applying for refinance I went to Transunion and Experian to pull my free credit report and then paid for both credit scores.  Then when the Mortgage company pulled their report, which has a title of CREDCO Instant Credit Report, there was a bigger difference than what I would have expected.  

Transunion gave me 816 while Credco gave me 615 for the Transunion score, Experian gave me 800 while Credco gave me 669 for the Experian score.  I called Experian and was told that the other credit info gathering co. can use what ever system they want.  Does this sound normal?  It seems that getting your number from the big 3 does not matter.  Do I need to purchase my FICO score from this online sight?  Just looking for any thoughts on this, thanks.

[llecs]

Welcome to the forums!

Unfortunately, TU and EX do not sell FICO scores from their website. They sell a score we affectionately call a FAKO score. TU, for example, sells a VantageScore from their website. VantageScores are only used by a small handful of lenders and the score range goes from 501-990, hence the higher score for you. Same score goes for EX I believe. These other scores can go up while FICO goes down and vice-versa. We tell people to ignore them.

You can get your TU FICO from here or via transunioncs.com (note the -cs). Both scores use the FICO TU'98 version of FICO score. Just more than half of the lenders out there actually use a TU'04 version which on average is lower than the score pulled through here.

You can get your EQ score from here or Equifax.com (they partnered up). The score from the lender should match the score pulled from Equifax.com.

Unfortunately, EX no longer allows consumers to pull their own FICO score. Unless you live in PA, only your lender can provide you with an EX FICO score.

I'd suggest pulling EQ and TU from here if you haven't done so to make sure they match.

[JoeBJay20]

If you purchased those scores through the TU or EX websites, then they aren't FICO scores, and are by and large meaningless as they're used by virtually no lenders.  They use different methodology than the FICO algorithm so it's not uncommon for those scores, which are commonly called "FAKO" scores around here, to be wildly different than true FICO scores.  The TU and EQ FICO scores are available here, but EX scores are no longer sold to the general public.