Hi, welcome to the forums!
If you haven't already, please read Understanding Your FICO ® Score and Credit Scoring 101 (at least the first post.)
These will give you the background knowledge you need to understand what you read here on the forums.
There are a lot of places that will be delighted to sell you "credit scores", but to get your FICO scores, the easiest place is here, the myFICO site.
We used to be able to buy all three: EQ, TU. and EX, but EX withdrew consumer access to scores on February 13 of this year.
You can buy your EQ FICO from the Equifax site (but their TU and EX scores are FAKO's), and you can buy your TU FICO score from www.transunioncs.com (note the -cs at the end.) I think it's easier to get them here, myself.
Don't forget, NO ONE can sell you your Experian FICO score, although they might try to confuse you into thinking that they are. The only way to find out your EX FICO these days is to apply for a mortgage, which is pretty drastic, to say the least.
You can buy EQ and TU individually through the FICO Standard Product, but they only display for a month, and then they're gone forever. If you buy the Suze Orman score kit, you get three scores, and you can decide which one to pull and when,and they display for a year instead. So you can pull 3 EQ's, or 3 TU's, or 1 EQ and 2 TU's, etc. Obviously, there are three because we used to be able to get EX. Oh, well.
I've started using Suze for just TU pulls and Score Watch (also available here) to keep track of EQ. That's about the best you can do to track FICO scores these days, I'm afraid.
eta: I got distracted and JESMONT beat me to it!
If you haven't already, please read Understanding Your FICO ® Score and Credit Scoring 101 (at least the first post.)
These will give you the background knowledge you need to understand what you read here on the forums.
There are a lot of places that will be delighted to sell you "credit scores", but to get your FICO scores, the easiest place is here, the myFICO site.
We used to be able to buy all three: EQ, TU. and EX, but EX withdrew consumer access to scores on February 13 of this year.
You can buy your EQ FICO from the Equifax site (but their TU and EX scores are FAKO's), and you can buy your TU FICO score from www.transunioncs.com (note the -cs at the end.) I think it's easier to get them here, myself.Don't forget, NO ONE can sell you your Experian FICO score, although they might try to confuse you into thinking that they are. The only way to find out your EX FICO these days is to apply for a mortgage, which is pretty drastic, to say the least.
You can buy EQ and TU individually through the FICO Standard Product, but they only display for a month, and then they're gone forever. If you buy the Suze Orman score kit, you get three scores, and you can decide which one to pull and when,and they display for a year instead. So you can pull 3 EQ's, or 3 TU's, or 1 EQ and 2 TU's, etc. Obviously, there are three because we used to be able to get EX. Oh, well.
I've started using Suze for just TU pulls and Score Watch (also available here) to keep track of EQ. That's about the best you can do to track FICO scores these days, I'm afraid.
eta: I got distracted and JESMONT beat me to it!
Thanks everyone for your responses. Yes, I did read thoseFAQs, so I did know about the FAKOs. I did TU yesterday, so would that $7.99 offer have given me a FAKO instead of a FICO since it wasn't (I don't think, anyway) the special -cs site?? I would have been pretty mad!
This 'game' is so interesting, I never knew. As someone who in theory has excellent credit (never missed a payment or carried a CC balance ever), I bet my score will not as high as I expect it to be. After gathering info here, I'm wondering if having only 1 CC that I utilize 13%+ (even though it is paid in full each month) is a bad thing. Should I open a second to decrease the utilization? Or perhaps start paying cash for gas and groceries?
Also, I haven't opened any new credit in several years. I bet my husband's is higher than mine; he has 2 CC at 6% and 8% utilization, and the SLs we consolidated years ago are under me.
This 'game' is so interesting, I never knew. As someone who in theory has excellent credit (never missed a payment or carried a CC balance ever), I bet my score will not as high as I expect it to be. After gathering info here, I'm wondering if having only 1 CC that I utilize 13%+ (even though it is paid in full each month) is a bad thing. Should I open a second to decrease the utilization? Or perhaps start paying cash for gas and groceries?
Also, I haven't opened any new credit in several years. I bet my husband's is higher than mine; he has 2 CC at 6% and 8% utilization, and the SLs we consolidated years ago are under me.