ok- this might be a dumb question - but i'm clueless: If Equifax is your "real" fico score - then why do most creditors (in Southern CAlifornia, at least) use Experian?
Their contract may be cheaper. They may provide the 'certain' info that they are interested in. Who knows...
Equifax isn't your only real fico score, it's just that equifax is the only service that lets us see our real fico score. TU and EX both give us a "consumer" score which may or may not match our FICO score. A creditor on the other hand will get a FICO score from any one of the three CRA's.
thanx love, wolverine. Wolverine - have you also noticed that most creditors check X in Southern Cal?
Why can't they force the other bureaus to give us our REAL score too??? Didn't someone force EQ and Fair Issac to release it? If so..why can't they force the other bureaus to release our scores?
YOU CAN ONLY GET A "REAL" F.I.C.O. FROM EQUIFAX...(that's NICE that TRANS UNION and EXPERIAN deny you the "REAL" scores)... You can apply for a mortgage and ask for all 3 scores...
Okay...now I'm confused. Are you saying that the score they show us are not the same score they will show to a potential creditor? I knew they weren't real fico scores, but for some reason I was thinking that the score I see would be the same one a credit card company would see. L
I believe the scores EX and TU show us are "generic" scores, worth nothing, just something to make the consumer happy. Depending on what type of creditor is pulling your report, the score they see can fluctuate in either direction by who knows how many points. For example: If you apply for financing for a car, and two folks have identical reports with the exception of one has had a previous car note that is paid/never late and the other has never had a car note before, the one with the previous finance account score will probably be higher than the one without. Credit cards would put more weight on your previous c.c. experience. Retail would probably put more weight on past retail accounts. Etc. Hope this helps
TU will provide a score to creditors if it is requested. This score is called the emperica score. Equifax calls theirs a "beacon" score. Ex has one too, but I can't remember what it is called. Alot of creditors, especially the big guys like CIti, Chase etc... won't necessarily get a score when they get your report because they are using their own scoring models. They are getting the underlying information from TU, EX or Eq, but they run it through their own random number generators to get a score. Also if you are buying a house or a car, there are special enhancements to the reports to identify issues that are more important for those categories. If you read the CE site, you'll see a note that there are "hundreds" of scoring models out there. Mark, I agree almost everyone is checking Ex these days if you live in CA. I have had AMEX check Eq and Chase check TU, but everyone else is going EX.
Credit expert score is 595, mortgage broker said experian score is 682. FICO and EQ was 698 so I think the 682 was closer to accurate. This is just my opinion, but I don't think Credit Expert takes age of derogs into account. Gib
