Just as a general FYI for anyone reading, your scores don't really exist until someone requests them. Whatever is on that particular CRA at that very moment --that's what creates that score. Your reports are fluid, continually changing as creditors update, and as the CRA's finally put down the doughnut and enter the changes. As Noah_Bodie puts it, the reports are a movie, and your scores are a snapshot of one moment in time of that movie.
If you see an account change on your TrueCredit or other score monitoring reports, or one pulled directly from EQ or the other CRA's, that same change will show when you pull your FICO, and IF that change is something that would affect your score, you will see a new score.
Since the FAKO's follow a different, unknown formula than FICO's formulas, sometimes they might change when FICO would not, and vice versa. That's why so many of us use credit monitoring services to see report changes, and we use the knowledge we've picked up here to predict when something on our reports is significant enough to make it worthwhile to pay for a new FICO score. And let me be the first to say that, as much as I've learned, I've had an awful lot of D'oh! moments when I pulled a score for nothing.
If you see an account change on your TrueCredit or other score monitoring reports, or one pulled directly from EQ or the other CRA's, that same change will show when you pull your FICO, and IF that change is something that would affect your score, you will see a new score.
Since the FAKO's follow a different, unknown formula than FICO's formulas, sometimes they might change when FICO would not, and vice versa. That's why so many of us use credit monitoring services to see report changes, and we use the knowledge we've picked up here to predict when something on our reports is significant enough to make it worthwhile to pay for a new FICO score. And let me be the first to say that, as much as I've learned, I've had an awful lot of D'oh! moments when I pulled a score for nothing.
That's because EX hates you!
@MidnightVoice wrote:
Just remember that different CRAs take different times to actually add stuff to your report. Usually TU first, EQ next and EX eventually
For me, it's EX first, TU about 4 days later, and then EQ wanders in several days after that. Unless TU is in one of its funks, and then EQ and TU swap.
I still don't get the delays. Surely this is all electronic? Bob Cratchit is not scratching away with his quill pen, laboriously entering my $6 balance!
I was told by a FIA CSR that they don't report to the credit bureaus in the sense that their system says, okay its the 12th, lets data dump our info on this guy into TU.....she claims that EX/EQ/TU randomly pull my balance/history so there is no way of predicting when that month they will check on an account. If this is the case, it would explain why there is a difference in reporting between bureaus over the month (maybe the bureaus are inquiring at different times)??
Or I could have had a completely incompetent CSR 
@Anonymous wrote:
I was told by a FIA CSR that they don't report to the credit bureaus in the sense that their system says, okay its the 12th, lets data dump our info on this guy into TU.....she claims that EX/EQ/TU randomly pull my balance/history so there is no way of predicting when that month they will check on an account. If this is the case, it would explain why there is a difference in reporting between bureaus over the month (maybe the bureaus are inquiring at different times)??Or I could have had a completely incompetent CSR
I was talking myself into believing this when I realized that even though they don't all post on the same day, they do follow a predictable pattern most of the time. I suppose that maybe all three somehow know when to pull my reports, but I don't see how they would, and especially how EX would know. Several of my account statement dates wander around --the 22nd, then the 24th, then the 21st, and so on, but EX pretty much always shows them the very next day.
I am convinced that there are a large number of CSR's who would sooner pump out septic tanks for a living than say out loud, "Gee, I just don't know!"