@Anonymous wrote:I just wanted to whine a little... I don't get why the three major bureaus calculate scores so differently! I pay something off the scores go up on two of them but down on one. Pay something else off, no change or same effect on two of the three, one always being different than the other two. Add a new account, same thing! Three steps forward, one step back... just my rant for the day. Thanks for reading.
Different datasets, also competition between the bureaus (they aren't friends, VantageScore maybe the one exception under the enemy of my enemy is my friend theory) lead to slightly different algorithms between the three. That said, "optimal" under one from a FICO strategy perspective is optimal from the rest of them too so it's usually not a big deal in practice.
Wouldn't sweat the small ups and downs from balances reporting, look at long-term trends.
@Anonymous wrote:I just wanted to whine a little... I don't get why the three major bureaus calculate scores so differently! I pay something off the scores go up on two of them but down on one. Pay something else off, no change or same effect on two of the three, one always being different than the other two. Add a new account, same thing! Three steps forward, one step back... just my rant for the day. Thanks for reading.
FICO scores are calculated by a proprietary algorithm owned by Fair Isaac. They tune the algorithm based on the data in each CRA for the CRA's use. Each time a FICO score is calculated, almost certaintly in a "baclk box" to protect Fair Isaac's IP, Fair Isaac gets paid. Tuning the score makes each score potentially different from that of another CRA with identical data but this is due to demographic distribution differences between the CRA's data sets. Thus each score is calculated slightly differently but is designed so that overall each FICO score is optimized for that CRA. It may seem strange that FICO scores could vary on exactly the same reported data but there is a statistical basis for this.
