fico scoring discrepancies

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Does anyone know why one credit reporting agency will have a large discrepancy with another one.  All the information on the reports are the same and i have 28 point difference lower on one of course.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymouswrote:

Hello,

Does anyone know why one credit reporting agency will have a large discrepancy with another one.  All the information on the reports are the same and i have 28 point difference lower on one of course.

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Hi,

They do not all use the same algorithm.  Also sometimes not all creditors report each account to each bureau.  For example, one of my credit cards is reported on EQ and EX, but not on TU.  Each of my scores are not exactly the same, and when one card reports, my EQ goes up by at least 8 points, and I gain no points on the others.  Everyone's mileage may vary. 

[Anonymous]

I figured they used different metrics, but i didn't think it would vary by as much as 28 points.  I just wanted to make sure there isn't anything I was missing and needed to correct.  Thanks for the response.  @FICOdeMio, how long did it take you to improve your scores so much.  Any tidbits to dish out?  Thanks in advance for your help.

[Anonymous]

Most scores across CRAs using the same scoring model typically don't vary more than 10-20 points.  There are people that have reported 20-30 point variances though, with the greatest outlier I've seen report a 36 point variance between top and bottom score with FICO 08.  While your 28 point variance is definitely on the high end, it's not unheard of.

[Anonymous]

     You really have to be careful on this and scrutinize your report carefully. I too questioned this a while ago. I could not for the life of me figure out why there was such a difference in my EX scores and the other two. On the surface everything looked the same (same number of CCs, open/closed accounts, etc.) Furthermore, when I checked each account they were exactly the same – it didn’t make sense. Then it was suggested that I check the dates on all my accounts. No difference except for one really important thing. My AMEX card was opened over 25 years ago; but 8 years ago it was “switched” to a different card (no inquiry, no application just a new card - similar to what Cap 1 does with signature cards today). TU and EQ listed the new card date on their CR but EX kept the original date. You can figure out the rest. My “oldest account” is far older for EX than anyone else. Also my AAoA is in the next bucket with EX but not TU and EQ.

Tada! A big score difference that I am not going to mention to any CRA; but you just might want to take a look at some of your dates. Of course your mileage may vary.

Y

[Anonymous]

Thanks in advance for the answer, but please clarify.  The fact that one card showed a shorter life span hurt your score on one cra.  Those 17 years neagtively adversed your score.  Since the age in one card wasn't as established you lost some points.  Well I will have to look into dates of open.  Please let me know if I understood your post and clarify if I misunderstood.  Thanks so much for the great information.

[Anonymous]

No problem MM4, that's what the Community is about:

     Don’t think of the CS as having a negative (taking points away from some baseline), just not as having as many positives as you could have (adding points to a baseline). TT and CGID have some good post on the subject, but it will help you understand other issues over time.

     SO to answer your questions. You said: “The fact that one card showed a shorter life span hurt your score on one [CRA].  Those 17 years negatively [adversely affected] your score.”  It was not that the shorter life span hurt my score on two of my CSs from two CRAs (EQ and TU); but it helped my CS by one CRA (EX).

     You asked: “Since the age in one card wasn't as established you lost some points.” No, since it wasn’t as established with the other two CRAs I did not GAIN points with them.

     Let me try to explain. That really old card reporting with EX was an outlier on my CR (it’s actually nearly 31 years with them now). It really pulled the rest of my scores up with that CRA (EX). It put my AAoA into the next bucket (a milestone that if all else remains constant you will see a score increase). By the other two CRAs not reporting the card as old as EX did, I did not get my AAoA into that bucket with them – thus I did not get the points increase with them either. It’s not that I lost points with EQ and TU, but I simply did not get the points with those two CRAs like I did with EX.

     There are other things that old card brought as well like age of oldest account, but it can be significant. Hope this helps.

Y

[Anonymous]

great information and it helps immensely.  I have said it before the contributors on here are creating a valuble service.  Thanks again.  You explained it perfectly so as I read age is part of the metrics used to create your score.  

[Anonymous]

Age (in many forms) is a part of the algorithms. Here are a couple threads you might want to read through. They are older, but have some good information.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Calculating-Average-Account-Age/td-p/1325...

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Closing-Aged-Accounts-Yes-It-Is-Ok/m-p/15...

You can also see where myFICO will explain it to you. Log into your myfico account and click on SCORES on the top toolbar. On the left side click on "Length of Credit History". Under that you will see your AAoA and AoOA. You can run your mouse over the little ? symbol and read what FICO says about those.  Then go back to the left side and click on "Amount of New Credit."  Under that you will see "Age of Most Recently Opened Account."  This is another parameter used in the scoring algorithm.  You can check these for all three CRA on your report.

You can do some snooping around and get a feel for the different age buckets. This thread will get you started (read the 6 post down). http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/AAoA-and-Scoring-Buckets/m-p/466001

Good luck, but you are right. Age is your friend, so if all of your other ducks are in a row. Go Gardening.

Y