The many flavors of FICO:__Editions, versions, and variations

[tricie17]

I need some feedback from my forum community.  Why does fico 9 go upward when fico 8 go downward with equifax and transunion with transunion being the main CB to do this.  Feel free to respond.  I am sure there are other members out there who will like some understanding of this.

[Anonymous]

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@tricie17 wrote:

I need some feedback from my forum community.  Why does fico 9 go upward when fico 8 go downward with equifax and transunion with transunion being the main CB to do this.  Feel free to respond.  I am sure there are other members out there who will like some understanding of this.

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Hi tricie17.  The answer is that something about your profile changed (possibly more than one thing) that made FICO 9 like it better but the same things taken together were considered a drawback from the perspective of FICO 8. 

I'll give you just one example but there are tons of things like this, and since the FICO 9 model isn't nearly as well studied and tested as FICO 8, it would be hard to say with any confidence.

Suppose somebody had a collection for $200 on her report and a few credit cards.  Around the same time her CC utilization went up but she also paid off the collection.  From FICO 8's perspective the fact that the collection was paid might give her only a few points, since FICO 8 still counts them, but the increase in CC utilization made her take a big hit.  So on the whole she took a hit with her FICO 8.  But for FICO 9, when the collection was paid, that model treats it as if it never happened; so paying the collection helped her a huge amount, more than the increase in CC utilization hurt her.  So her FICO 9 went up.

This is not confined to FICO 8 vs. FICO 9.  It happens anytime you compare two scoring models.  (FICO 8 Classic vs. FICO 8 Auto Enhanced, say)  The profile can change in a way that benefits one and hurts another.  More common is for a change to help one model a good amount but help another model very little.  But it is still possible for one model to be helped while another is hurt -- less common but niot unknown. 

[Anonymous]

An example outside of credit scoring:

Suppose you were writing a paper for an English Lit class.  You show it to two different grad students.  Both independently tell you it is basically a B+ paper.  But you want to get a really good grade, so you made changes to it and you show it two them again.  Now one says it is a B paper and the other says it is an A-.

That seems strange, but it means that the changes you made on the whole made one person feel it was a little worse whereas the same changes made the other person feel it was better.  That's what makes horse races, as Mark Twain once said: difference of opinion.

[tricie17]

Thank you CreditGuyinDixie for the quick response.  I understand what you are saying however I do noy uderstand the massive increase in Fico 9 vs the small decrease in Fico 8.  Of course this is mainly TU which is always different from the other two Bureaus.  Why do we have to suffer these versions especially when TU can not get it together.  I can work to get the score back but does the versions ever even out?.

[Anonymous]

You'd probably need to find a person here on the forum who would act for you as a kind of pro bono credit counselor.  He's need to see all your credit reoorts  and copies of all of three each time there is a change.  Most importantly he'd need to be a person who knows a lot about FICO 9 (as well as FICO 8).

I would be a bad choice for a number of reasons, most notably because I know very little about FICO 9.  I have never seen my FICO 9 scores -- not even once. (I am not a subsciber to the MF monitoring service.)  I have spent almost no time talking to other people about FICO 9.either.  So I have no direct experience with it or by hearsay.

You may not have much luck finding a volunteer who meets all those qualifications, but that's probably what you need.

In the meantime, you may want to aim for this improving your FICO 8 classic score (and forgetting about 9).  Almost no one is using FICO 9.  If you focus on getting your FICO 8 into the 800s, then your FICO 9 and all other models will take care of themselves.