What a giant crock of crud. Here I've been paying creditexpert.com $70 for the year (or was that $79.95?) to monitor my credit and to *THINK* they were providing me with accurate data. My score has been a solid 710 (give or take a few points up and down) for the past 6 months. I apply for my mortgage today and *WHAMO!* -- my Experian (FICO) comes back from the mortgage company as a 650 !! Sixty friggin' points different! What the heck good is creditexpert if they aren't even in the same ballpark ?? On the other hand, I was VERY pleased with EQUIFAX. They've been telling me (via their credit monitoring service) that I've been a solid 711 to 718 for the past six months. Today, their website told me I was a 711. Today, the mortgage company pulled my Equifax and guess what? It was 711, right on the nose! And my score did NOT go down even with THAT inquiry (like it did IMMEDIATELY with Experian). Needless to say, if you're going to pay one of the CRA's to monitor your SCORE, do NOT go with creditexpert. They take your $$ and hand you a worthless score that's 60+ points different from the REAL FICO via Experian. SAVE YOUR $$ AND STAY AWAY FROM CREDITEXPERT.COM for accurate FICO scoring !!
And Trans Union isn't much better. They said I am 701, and it came back as a 682. Good thing I'm not paying TU for credit score monitoring ...
I think we pretty much knew that the scores are not that accurate, didn't we? I mainly use CreditExpert if I have accounts in dispute to see if they get deleted or not or to monitor to make sure no old accounts should happen to pop up on there. Equifax does seem to be the only true score. Sorry about the point difference though. Hope it didn't shoot down your mortgage chances.
Thanks for the input. No, it didn't screw anything up. The program we're going with needs a 660 middle score to be considered A+ paper, and mine was a 682. It just makes me sick when you pay for something and it's NOT what you're getting.
If you use the "reasonable man" approach or the "least sophisticated consumer" standard to what they offer, I dare say the average person thinks they're getting a real fico score from Experian when they're not getting anything useful. Fraudo not fico.
Good looking out. I wonder if your lender pulled a mortgage product FICO. I'm thinking there's so many flavors of FICO's out there the one that only matters is the one that you need to get your approved for your particular purchase. Auto-loan Fico Mortgage Fico Consumer Fico Insurance Fico Midwest Fico Southern Fico PSU Alumni Fico
When I pulled my CreditExpert score for Experian, it said I had 620. My mortgage Experian was 582! It also said my TU was 600. My TU was 622. My EQ of course was dead on.
I decided to ante up the $12 and see what my Equifax Score was...low and behold I'm a member of the 700 club with a 706!!! It says that slightly below US average. Dayum.. Thats with a Bk7 thats 89 months old 2 Other Derogs.. A 60+ late pay on Paid Account A Charge off (should say included in BK7 but it will drop off soon enough) Positive factors Most recent past due is old or unknown Porportion of balances is low 27% (it says 34% is average) Negative Factors Public Record (Bk7) Length of Time Acccounts Established is short I've been in there database for 111 months.
FACTS about CREDITEXPERT... IT DOES NOT SAY IT IS GIVING YOU A FICO SCORE... IT GIVES you a experian score ... (propritaty score patern.. with a different score formula from FICO..) CREDITWATCH on the otherhand says it gives a FICO score... THIS IS THE PRIMARY REASON for the difference in scores with your mortgage company scores.. BOTH services have there advantages...
The difference is that Equ. gives you a score that will usually be pretty close to what a lender sees. Experian and TU provide completely different proprietary scores to lenders. I've said it before I'll say it again, just ignore the scores that TU and Exp show you, it's the information that matters. You can compare the info to your Equ report and get a pretty good idea of where you really stand.
Propriety or not.. for $80 a year consumers should be getting something useful, not misleading. You can get reports for free by disputing and by some state laws. It's a racket to get some money from the front end. Now I see why Equifax's service says "REAL FICO".
The following is from a post I made back on May 5. Since then the only new thing I have learned is that the score you get from E-loan at http://www.eloan.com for free is a pretty accurate FICO score that pulls from your Trans Union credit report. The E-loan score is on a normal scale of 300 to 850. Q "What is the difference between a Beacon and a FICO score? Are there two separate algorithms? I've spoken to reps from two different financial loan institutions, and they've assured me that there IS a difference between your FICO score and your Beacon score.. hmmm..." A "FICO is short for Fair Isaac and co. This company creates credit risk models. Fact: Most basic credit scores are what is termed a FICO score. Only scores that takes the following criteria into account are considered FICO scores. http://www.myfico.com/MyFICO/CreditCentral/ScoreConsiders/FICOFactors.htm Also consider that FICO scores ignore things like having a job, how much you make and your age. See http://www.myfico.com/MyFICO/CreditCentral/ScoringWorks/FICOIgnores.htm Now there are many versions of FICO scores and there are several basic types. The three major types are: 1 FICO (used with credit cards). 2 Bankruptcy (used for mortgages and auto loans). 3 Profitability (used to see if they can make money off of you). Weed out the free riders. Now there are three major credit bureaus and they all sell credit scores to consumers and lenders: CRA name------Consumer score name---------------------Lender score name Equifax------------Beacon/FICO score---------------------------Beacon Experian----------Experian credit score-------------------------Experian/Fair Isaac Risk Model score TransUnion------Trans Union personal credit score---------Empirica score Now a real FICO score uses a scale from 300 to 850 where 661 or 681 is very good and great respectively. When a lender pulls a FICO report they get a FICO score on this scale that has a name that varies depending on what bureau they pull from. Each CRA sells 12-15 different kinds of credit scores. Equifax's personal credit score is the same as the one they sell to lenders. TransUnion sells consumers a score on a scale of 150 to 934. Equifax sells consumers a score on a scale of 340 to 820. Now if this is not complex enough, Fair Isaac could sell a mortgage company a risk score that would fall into the bankruptcy type. This would technically not be called a FICO score even though it came from Fair Isaac. This type is used to see the odds that you will declare bankruptcy and is used in applying for a mortgage. They usually pull all three of your FICO scores first and take the middle number. Then they plug in the data you give them about income, debt ratios Etc. To make things even more complex, some lenders such as auto dealers are using older FICO credit scores on potential borrowers in conjunction with other data to come up with a number that means something to them and nothing to the rest of the world. With all the complexities of credit scoring don't be surpassed if the average credit rep is clue-less as to what is actually going on."
Yes it's only sixty cent. I searched for that promo code and it was the only good one I found. Hey George .60 is .60. Thats a Hershey with almonds.
I guess the only recourse we have is to try our darndest to make sure our TU and EX reports resembles the EQ report as much as possible, then the scores should be relatively the same.
Love Exactly. Also, the score from E-loan for free is pretty accurate. Darn, I just noticed in the above post, I stated that Equifax used a scale from 340 to 820. I meant to say that the fake score that Experian sells consumers was on a scale of 340 to 820. I wash those two bureaus did not both start their name with a E. Me Company--------score------date-----scale Equifax-----------673------05/02---300 - 850 E-loan------------657------06/11---300 - 850 Experian----------643------02/01---340 - 820 Trans Union------736------05/09---150 - 934 Jshimmer In any case a 650 + 711 are good scores. Good luck with the mortgage.
I had a 650, a 682 and a 711. Agreed, I don't have an issue getting the loan, but I'm just so sick of tossing $$ out the windows for products that aren't as advertised (credit "score" monitoring) -- it's not the REAL FICO that you're monitoring, but simply "a" score ... I'll just piss them off and pull a new report two or three times a day for the remainder of my 1 year paid subscription ...
Even though I have learned on this board the the TU and EQ scores aren't "real" prior to this thread I had read of instances where people said that when they found out their "true" scores from a mortgage lender, etc. the scores were higher. That didn't bother me. I figured there was a little cushion out there and I actually felt better. Now to find out that the scores can also be LOWER is upsetting. You really don't know where you stand w/ them.
