Why such a big difference?

[Anonymous]

I just received my Fico quarterly 3B update and my TU was 679, EXP 650 and EQ 651. I understand a small difference but almost 30 points. I looked over all three reports and they are all showing 1 collection and 1 student loan 30+ day late payment. There isn't any difference in the reports. I'm sorry if this topic has been addressed before. But does anyone have any insight as to why there is such a difference?

[Revelate]

The typical design goal for the algorithms was +/- 30 points for the same file: the individual bureaus tweak the FICO algorithms for their individual data sets.  Also I would note that there are some minor details like how tradelines report which may be different between the bureaus and cause them to be factored differently.  

Isn't much rhyme or reason, we've never had enough data to analyze it well... and not worth worrying over honestly.   You aren't the only one who is concerned though, lenders hate it: it was a non-trivial marketing push with Vantage score to claim they were more consistent across the three... as I understand it one of FICO 9's design goals to try to bring the scores back into closer alignment for identical information.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply. I've just been working really hard on my credit and it was nice to see I was in the 670's registering good finally but the other two sores are somewhat discouraging.

[Anonymous]

It's also quite possible that your three reports don't in fact contain identical data.  For example, suppose Bob has the exact same five credit cards on all three reports.  It's common for the balances on the five accounts to NOT be the same, on any particular day of the month.  Bob's Chase Freedom might typically report on the 12th of every month.  On the 14th, the new balance has appeared on EX and EQ (say) but hasn't yet materialized on TU.  His TU score could easily be 50 points different from EX/EQ, depending on what that balance is.

[Anonymous]

Another thing to consider would be inquiries, which are only specific to one bureau.  Outside of someone with zero inquiries across the board, it's pretty rare that someone has the same exact amount of [scoreable] inquiries on each bureau, thus making "identical" CR data much less likely when comparing reports across the CRAs.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I just received my Fico quarterly 3B update and my TU was 679, EXP 650 and EQ 651. I understand a small difference but almost 30 points. I looked over all three reports and they are all showing 1 collection and 1 student loan 30+ day late payment. There isn't any difference in the reports. I'm sorry if this topic has been addressed before. But does anyone have any insight as to why there is such a difference?

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My TU FICO 8 is regularly about 30 points higher than the EX and EQ versions.

[Anonymous]

SJ, is that with identical bureau data across all 3B?  If not, what are the differences?

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I just received my Fico quarterly 3B update and my TU was 679, EXP 650 and EQ 651. I understand a small difference but almost 30 points. I looked over all three reports and they are all showing 1 collection and 1 student loan 30+ day late payment. There isn't any difference in the reports. I'm sorry if this topic has been addressed before. But does anyone have any insight as to why there is such a difference?

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As others have mentioned, the CRAs were given "wide" latitude to tweak Fico scoring models to suit their desires. Tweaking was restricted with the rollout of Fico 9. Curious, did you get 3B Fico 9 scores as well and if so what were they?

If your CRA reports are truely identical (including # of inquiries), the spread in Fico 9 scores should be less - could be less than half the spread of Fico 8 based on my experience.

My files were identical with # INQ at 0 on all 3 CRAs except 4/2018 (1 INQ on EQ & TU, 0 on EX). Below is what I saw on some 3B reports.

Fico Model Name	Feb-16	Mar-16	Jul-16	Aug-16	Oct-16	Mar-17	Apr-18
EQ Bankcard Fico 9	867	877	873	873	858	876	868
TU Bankcard Fico 9	869	879	874	874	863	879	873
EX Bankcard Fico 9	873	878	879	879	862	879	878
Range BCE Fico 9	6	2	6	6	5	3	10
Fico Model Name	Feb-16	Mar-16	Jul-16	Aug-16	Oct-16	Mar-17	Apr-18
EQ Bankcard Fico 8	874	882	881	876	881	887	881
TU Bankcard Fico 8	880	899	881	886	873	899	891
EX Bankcard Fico 8	895	898	900	892	897	900	900
Range BCE Fico 8	21	17	19	16	24	13	19

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

SJ, is that with identical bureau data across all 3B?  If not, what are the differences?

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It's with the same data except for the following:

-5 closed accounts which no longer appear in EQ but do appear in TU and EX, giving EQ a lower average age of accounts than EX and TU. Theoretically this could account for TU being higher than EQ but wouldn't account for TU being higher than EX.

-1 zero balance account which appears as open in EX, but was closed when transferred to another issuer and appears as closed in EQ and TU.

There is of course a difference in inquiries. More than 50% of my hard pulls are with EX, the others are split between TU and EQ. So yes TU has less inquiries than EX, but it has roughly the same number of inquiries as EQ. So while theoretically inquiries could account for a slightly higher TU than EX, it wouldn't account for TU being higher than EQ.

[Thomas_Thumb]

SJ,

As you say, the increased INQs on EX could be depressing that score relative to TU. 

What could account for TU being higher than EQ is CRA tweaking. EQ penalizes more than TU or EX for # accounts with balances. Also, EQ having a lower AAoA than TU may adversely influence EQ relative to TU. What is your AAoA difference?

P.S. How do your Fico 9 scores stack up?