I recently got approved for a couple of mortgage loans (yay!), but in the case of NFCU at a pretty high interest rate (4.35%) for today's market. Looking over the credit score summary I got back from NFCU, I can sort of see why. My EQ5 and EX2 scores were fairly respectable (at 708 and 720, respectively) but my TU4 score was a pretty disappointing 660. I can't see any discrepancies in the data between TU, EX and EQ so I'm kind of stumped. Experian does have a couple of utility accounts reporting using Experian Boost, but that only had a minor impact on my score.
I pulled my own credit a couple of days later and it showed that my TU4 score had already jumped 12 points to 672 (up into the 'good' range according to FICO.) But I'm still puzzled at the big difference between the scores.
Some of the reasons given for the mediocre score were: Length of time for revolving accounts, length of time accounts have been established, Time since most recent account open too short, and Too many accounts with balances.
I just started rebuilding my credit a couple of years ago, so those reasons make sense, but EQ and EX have exactly the same data. So why the 60 point spread?
If those are the scores from your trimerge for the mortgages, they based your rate on the 708 score, so happily TU4 being noticably lower didn't hurt your rate. As to why there was a 60 pt spread in your mortgage scores, it could be for any number of reasons, but they basically divide into two classes: either it's due to 1) differences between what's reported to the bureaus among your three files or 2) the different FICO versions used for the three mortgage scores weighing what's in your files differently. Given the size of the spread, I would expect it would mostly be due to things falling under 1), but you don't see any differences among the three reports except for Experian boost (which I doubt NFCU used anyway). If you want to post more details of your profile and how it appears on each of your three reports we can help you check whether there's anything you overlooked.
So the one primary difference I saw between the data was a delinquent car note I had 3 years ago (the only one on my report thankfully). TU shows more missed payments than the other two bureaus, though none of them went past due for more than 30 days.
From the NFCU credit summary, here my scores and 'factors':
EQ Negative Impact Negative Factor
708 30 Time since most recent account opening is too short
14 Length of time accounts have been established
02 Level of delinquency on accounts
10 Proportion of balances to credit limits is too on bank or other revolving accounts
EX 14 Length of time accounts have been established
720 10 Ratio of balance to limit on bank or other revolving accounts too high
18 Number of accounts with delinquency [only one 3 yr. old account actually]
05 Too many accounts with balances
TU 12 Length of time revolving accounts have been established
660 14 Length of time accounts have been established
30 Time since most recent account opening is too short
05 Too many accounts with balances
'I' Inquiries did impact credit score and for models that indicate it
No derogatory info found in the file.
I'm not sure how to read the 'I' in the TU file. I pulled my 3 bureau score a few days later from FICO themselves using the MyFICO app. It showed a total of 9 inquiries across all 3 bureaus.
More 30d's on the TU report seems like a likely explanation to me. I don't know exactly how having a greater number of lates of the same level affects your score or if there are any thresholds for # of lates, but it does have an impact. How recent is the most recent late on each of your three reports? Recency of delinquency is a major scoring factor, esp at 2 years, so that could be part of it. Also, you said that the extra 30d's is one of the primary differences among your reports; are there any others?
Nothing in the list of reason codes jumps out at me as something disproportionately affecting TU. Reason codes go in order of their numerical impact on score, so it's possible there's a reason code that would be clarifying, it's just further down the list where we can't see it. I read that "I" note as saying that any of your reports that have inquiries on them will have some sort of score impact from them, which is true, but idk if that's what they actually mean by it. How are your 9 inquiries split up among the bureaus?
TU shows 12 late payments, EX shows 8 and EQ shows 7. They were all 30 days (no 60 day or later delinquencies) and occurred in early 2017 and late 2016. Also, I have 5 inquiries on TU (thanks NFCU & Apple) and 2 each on EX and EQ.
@8bitmachinegun wrote:TU shows 12 late payments, EX shows 8 and EQ shows 7. They were all 30 days (no 60 day or later delinquencies) and occurred in early 2017 and late 2016. Also, I have 5 inquiries on TU (thanks NFCU & Apple) and 2 each on EX and EQ.
If there aren't any other differences between your TU report and the other two, I think the extra late payments and inquiries are probably the main reasons for your score difference.
I agree that there seems to be no other explanation, but 60 points seems like a harsh punishment for four extra late payments, especially as dated as these are. A few posts ago, someone mentioned that all three of these scores use different algorithms. My best guess would be that TU4 is more 'intolerant' of past credit problems.
I guess I'll never know for sure...