What the score "upgrade" means to you

[HiLine]

I assume most of you have received your new FICO scores if you subscribe to Score Watch.

You guys,

It does not matter how your score changed because of the score "upgrade". This upgrade is simply a change in the type of FICO score that My FICO provides to you. You are probably aware by now that there are many FICO scores out there; what My FICO, the consumer division branch of FICO, did was change the type of scores you get with their service. Previously you got FICO 04 scores; with this change you get FICO 08 scores. This by no means implies that lenders are also changing the type of FICO scores they use to judge your creditworthiness. This new FICO score has been in existence for years, and now My FICO decided to reveal the score to you. The fact that you saw a score change doesn't mean anything practical. Your FICO 04 score is the same, and so is your FICO 08 score. 

Your creditworthiness remains exactly the same as before with the score "upgrade". Your FICO score (based on the same scoring model) is exactly the same. Yes, exactly the same.

[CreditHealthy]

Thank you for this message, I've seen so many explanations and definitions of this scoring module that it makes me confused. What you have said has made a lot of since to me, and i will no longer worry about my scores in terms of this new upgrade....Thanks!

[EW800]

I am so glad you wrote this.  I have seen the many messages from folks worried about the score drops (in some cases), but when it comes down to it, it really means nothing.  It is all depends on what model the creditor pulls.  In my case, my score went up 35 points with the 08 model, however just like those that went down, it really does not mean a whole lot, except to tell me what a creditor may see if they pull the 08 model - and even they vary from creditor to creditor.  

[crunching_numbers]

Well HiLine, what this upgrade means to me is a loss of access to my FICO04 score. I have access through credit cards to my FICO08 scores on a regular basis, but no other access to my 04 score. Now mortgage planning will be difficult. I just wish there was a way to buy a consumer tri merge report. It would have been infinitely better for us if they just offered BOTH products. 

[Revelate]

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@crunching_numbers wrote:

Well HiLine, what this upgrade means to me is a loss of access to my FICO04 score. I have access through credit cards to my FICO08 scores on a regular basis, but no other access to my 04 score. Now mortgage planning will be difficult. I just wish there was a way to buy a consumer tri merge report. It would have been infinitely better for us if they just offered BOTH products. 

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I fall into this camp too... and I really, really don't care about my '08 scores.  Credit card approvals are w/e to me, and even the reach I took at a Fidelity Amex came back approved with a non-trivial CL (for me) when I'm next to incomeless.    

I still have my DCU score which as long as it stays on '04 I'll be OK, but it was nice doing some testing on '04 with SW to try to optimize it for a mortgage app with a more frequent set of datapoints than once a month.

ETA: I will say I'm having more *fun* being able to do testing on FICO '08 with scorewatch, before it didn't seem like I anything I really did budged my score (balances, no balances, going from zero to one inquiry, even a brand spanking new tax lien only dropped it 5 points, huh?) but now with FICO '08 even little things move it.  

Longer term I probably won't care much, but whenever I have real income again and go shopping for a mortgage ASAP after that point, I'm going to be disappointed again I suspect.

[HiLine]

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@crunching_numbers wrote:

Well HiLine, what this upgrade means to me is a loss of access to my FICO04 score. I have access through credit cards to my FICO08 scores on a regular basis, but no other access to my 04 score. Now mortgage planning will be difficult. I just wish there was a way to buy a consumer tri merge report. It would have been infinitely better for us if they just offered BOTH products. 

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I know. I was bummed too. I posted in another thread that I was enraged, precisely because of this.

[mongstradamus]

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@HiLine wrote:

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@crunching_numbers wrote:

Well HiLine, what this upgrade means to me is a loss of access to my FICO04 score. I have access through credit cards to my FICO08 scores on a regular basis, but no other access to my 04 score. Now mortgage planning will be difficult. I just wish there was a way to buy a consumer tri merge report. It would have been infinitely better for us if they just offered BOTH products. 

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I know. I was bummed too. I posted in another thread that I was enraged, precisely because of this.

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Just so you know you can buy EQ04 fico score direcly from equifax. Its their scorewatch product i think its called . Its $19.95 on their site. You do have access to eq04 but its at an price. 

[Revelate]

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@HiLine wrote:

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@crunching_numbers wrote:

Well HiLine, what this upgrade means to me is a loss of access to my FICO04 score. I have access through credit cards to my FICO08 scores on a regular basis, but no other access to my 04 score. Now mortgage planning will be difficult. I just wish there was a way to buy a consumer tri merge report. It would have been infinitely better for us if they just offered BOTH products. 

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I know. I was bummed too. I posted in another thread that I was enraged, precisely because of this.

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Just so you know you can buy EQ04 fico score direcly from equifax. Its their scorewatch product i think its called . Its $19.95 on their site. You do have access to eq04 but its at an price. 

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Score Power for the single use case.

[HiLine]

Good to know. Hopefully the Score Power report sticks to the 04 model. Score Watch is becoming near useless unless more mortgage lenders adopt the 08 model.

[Involver]

It means I now have an additional FICO monitoring product to anally dissect how changes on different algorithms from the same bureau affect my scoring, lol.