My TU score is so low

[Anonymous]

My three scores are EQ 684/TU 589/EX 685. They are so low because I had a poor payment history during my grad school years. I had close to $30K in debt three years ago when I got help from my parents and paid them off. Closed 4 CC accounts as I paid off the debt. I only keep one Discover card which I have $1.1K CL but didn't use it until this October.

I also paid off my mortgage 5 years ago (again, with help from my parents). So it shows on my CR for a short period of tiem (only 7 months). I owned two cars, purchased with cash; also purchased a second house in 04 under my wife's name because my scores were so low.

I understand I have too many negative items on my report that hurt my scores. But I don't understand why my TU score is much lower than the other two? Does it favor higher credit limits? My EQ score has jumped from 606 since October. Discover declined my credit increase request earlier this month and I found they used TU for decision. Should I apply for more credit? (certainly I can use my credit cards more responsibly now since I have a stable income) just to help raise my scores?

[cobaltnv]

Your three FICO scores will vary with respect to one another; however, 100 points is a pretty large range. I would suggest looking at the three credit reports side by side and make sure that they contain the same information. I would guess that the TU report has some additional negative info (late payments etc). A additional credit card would help in the long term.  Discover is a really nice card to have, but it is difficult if it is your only card as it is not accepted in many locations.I would suggest a Visa or Mastercard. With your EQ and EX scores you should (I think) qualify for a prime lender like Chase or BofA.

You might also search on here for GW letters to see about having the late payments etc removed. 

Good luck! 

[Anonymous]

BTW, I got that TU score from truecredit. Is that FICO score or what? Thanks.

[haulingthescoreup]

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smileypan wrote:
BTW, I got that TU score from truecredit. Is that FICO score or what? Thanks.

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No, it's not, and that's why your scores are so all over the place. The TU score is a FAKO, and no one knows (or much cares) what goes into it.

My TC FAKO's are:

EQ - 723
TU - 715
EX - 673

My real scores are in my siggy.

[Anonymous]

Thank you both for replying. I finally got it. So even my EX score may not be FICO. I'm canceling my truecredit. MyFico credit monitoring is good, I get updates and alerts from time to time, but if I have to pay $15 everytime for my other two CRA scores, I don't know if it's worth it. What product do most users here have? How do you know your 3 scores every month? $45 dollars every month?

[llecs]

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smileypan wrote:
Thank you both for replying. I finally got it. So even my EX score may not be FICO. I'm canceling my truecredit. MyFico credit monitoring is good, I get updates and alerts from time to time, but if I have to pay $15 everytime for my other two CRA scores, I don't know if it's worth it. What product do most users here have? How do you know your 3 scores every month? $45 dollars every month?

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Although we aren't allowed to mention them, we can tell you to google "myFICO discount codes" to get your price down to $12 something per report. I pull our reports twice per month. Pricey, I know, but there is not other place to get all three. Plus the economic benefit of knowing your scores (esp. if planning to buy a future home or car) far outweigh the costs. BTW, we use companies that pull all 3 reports (not scores) and if there's a change to a specific report, then we'll pull the corresponding report to track the score change.

[jackg]

Smiley,

I've a great deal of empathy for you due to my own circumstances. My current FICO scores are:

TU  604

EQ 747

EX  697

I've been working on improving scores since I filed CH 7 in May 2006. As you can see there is a difference of 143 points between TU and EQ and I think I've discovered the problem. It centers around a mortgage that was foreclosed a few months before I filed BK. What happened was that as I missed mortgage payments the lender was reporting the lates to everyone but, at TU, the interpretation of those lates was done differently. TU reported the 1st late as "30 days late" then when the 2nd late came in they reported " one 30 day late and one 60 day late". When the next late came in, you guessed it, they reported "one 30 day late, one 60 day late and one 90 day late". From that point they just added, each month, another 90 day late so that by the time foreclosure was complete my report said: 0ne 30 day late, one 60 day late, and nine 90 days late. Neither EQ or EX report the account this way, it's simply stated as a "Foreclosure", which TU does also.

I don't know what's right but I do know that this is causing the 143 point difference. Perhaps the same situation is keeping your score down. If it's true and you have any success at fixing it please share your strategy with me.

FYI: The original mortgage holder sold it to someone else which I'm certain complicates things further.Also, I cancelled my True Credit account today, due to the changes they made to their product. I continue to subscribe to EQ Credit Watch Gold and Score Watch. For the future I intend to to pull MYFICO scores and reports every 2 months.

Good Luck

[Anonymous]

Jack,

Thank you for sharing your discovery. I figured we are probably in the same situation here. Here is my story.

I was sort of like the prodigal son and refused to have any contacts with my family at some point. Up to the point I really couldn't handle my CC debts and my mother helped me call the CCCs and paid them off. She asked me not to use any CCs again and I did what she said (for almost three years till I found out how important it is to keep a good FICO).

There was a BankOne card I forgot about it. I really had too many cards. Because I had signed up e-statements, I never got my statements mailed to me. In addition, Chase acquired BankOne in early 2004. I never heard of anything from BankOne ever since. Last month I got a court summon delivered to my door (see my other posts), and it was then I realized the Chase account shown on my report is actually my BankOne account. So it begins with 30 day late in May 2005, and then 60 in June 2005, and goes on and on till they charged it off in May 2007. Two full years. (it may sound strange but they did not report anything between May 2004 and May 2005, so when we purchased our house in Sep 2004, this account wasn't on my report.)

So I think your discovery makes sense. I checked my three reports, and only found that on my TU report there is an additional inquiry which was made by the CA that tried to sue me. And again, I think your situation is kind of like mine. My account was sold to that CA this year. It is very impressive you got your scores back to 700's in only two years. I wish you the best of luck.

Message Edited by smileypan on 12-30-2008 12:53 PM

[Anonymous]

Just thought I would post my TC FAKOs:

TU: 637

EQ:647

EXP:591

Look at my signature, that tells you how useless they are.

[Anonymous]

I believe TU is the only one that penalizes you for not having an installment loan.  It shows up on my report but it is my highest score.  It's EQ that gives me a problem.