myFICO and Equifax

[Anonymous]

I have recently applied for a car loan through my bank, which has finally brought my attention to all the ins-and-outs of credit reports and scoring.  My problem though is that the bank came back and said my Equifax score was really low.  I purchased my Equifax score directly from Equifax, then purchased the Equifax FICO score here at myfico.com.  They are radically different, with the score directly from Equifax being the higher score.  Why would the FICO score differ from the one calculated directly by the credit bureau itself?

[DaveSignal]

The credit bureaus try to use their own scoring algorithms to save money by not paying for FICO.  These alternate formulas sometimes have similar results and sometimes drastically different.  When a bank is checking your credit, however, they usually are using a FICO score.

EDIT:  as a side note, there is an option to purchase your FICO directly from the Equifax site.  You just have to explicitly pay for that option.

[pizzadude]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have recently applied for a car loan through my bank, which has finally brought my attention to all the ins-and-outs of credit reports and scoring.  My problem though is that the bank came back and said my Equifax score was really low.  I purchased my Equifax score directly from Equifax, then purchased the Equifax FICO score here at myfico.com.  They are radically different, with the score directly from Equifax being the higher score.  Why would the FICO score differ from the one calculated directly by the credit bureau itself?

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You need to confirm what type of score the bank pulled.   It might be an Auto Enhanced FICO score, or possibly a newer or older FICO version than what is sold here at MyFICO, which is the EQ Classic FICO04 Score.

The score you bought from EQ was very likely their Equifax credit score, which is a FAKO score.    You can purchase a FICO score directly from Equifax, and it is the exact same version sold here at MyFICO.