I maybe be repeating an already asked question, and if so..I am sorry. I am confused. I keep seeing FICO and FAKO on posts. What does that mean. I know FICO is the fair isaac score, but what is FAKO? I have gotten both mine and my husbands scores from the TrueCredit website, by Transunion. I want to be sure I am getting the right info. We want to buy a house in the near future...so we are working on our credit. BK discharged 02/06 WooHoo!!! my scores efx-627 up from 445 02/06 xpn-536 tru- 560 hubby's scores efx-545 all his scores were low 500's 01/06 xpn-576 tru-559
FICO is the real thing, a score generated by Fair Issacs and Co. The components aren't a secret, their website will tell you that 30% is utilization etc. The actual scoring model is top secret though. This is the score that most people pull when making a credit decision, or a variation of this score, there are auto FICOs etc. etc. etc. FAKO is a score generated by someone other than Fair Issacs, not the real thing. They can be usefull however by giving an approximation of your FICO range. They are different but I have found them to be somwhat close to what your actual FICO may be. The other thing that FAKOs are usefull for to see if you are going tin the right direction score wise. So in a nutshell, they are good to gauge where you stand, but don't put a whole lot of stock in them. If you want your true FICOs you can go to myfico.com, and with a discount code like 20% off all three scores will cost you aroud $35. For reference by FICO the last time i pulled were 599 573 589 (TU EQ EX) while my FAKOs from true were 582 581 565.
I don't think FAKO stand for anything. I believe it's a derivative of FICO, and since it represents a score that is not accurate, acording to the scoring model of Fair Issacs, it is essentialy fake. Hence, FAKO. Simply a play on FICO.
So are the scores I am getting from the TrueCredit by TransUnion website considered FAKOS? I have the monitoring with TrueCredit..I want to make sure I'm not wasting my time and money by using them if they aren't our REAL scores. Thanks again.
The scores you are getting from TrueCredit are FAKOs. They use their own scoring model, so the scores will be different, how much depends on the person. My previous post listed both FICO and FAKO scores pulled on the same day. So don't assume you have a XXX midscore based on your TrueCredit scores and apply for a mortgage thinking your actual FICOs will be the same, they won't. Could be higher, could be lower. TrueCredit is a good site for estimating your FICOs. It also allows you access to all 3 credit reports which is helpfull because you can keep an eye on your reports. You can also see changes as disputes come off etc. So in essence your credit reports are accurate, the scores are not. Another advantage of having access to your credit reports is that when you obtain a mortgage some lenders require all collections be satisfied, having access lets you know ahead of time if you have any issues you need to be aware of. Another positive reason for using TrueCredit is bumpage, which is why I use it. All in all I think you get alot from TrueCredit for the price. Good luck brian
Thanks for all the info.... I will get our reports free of any dings and then go to myFICO to get our real scores. My fingers are crossed that they will be higher.... But I won't check until I have our reports where I want them. Thanks again...
Good plan. Pulling FICO isn't cheap, around 35 bucks with a discount code. As long as you have TrueCredit you can use it to get some bumpage going on. If you haven't heard of bumpage it's basically knocking hard pulls of your credit reports. When you apply for a loan or credit card and someone pulls your credit it goes on that report as a inquiry. These can effect your score, the general consensus is each hard pull may cost a point or two, not much, but it could be the difference between getting a 100% financing and 80%. Also some companies don't like seeing alot of inquiries and may decline you just for that. Using true credit you can actually make some of this hard inquiries disappear before the 2 year period when they would drop off automatically. Supposedly TU and EQ only have so many slots allocated for inquiries on a consumer report. Once these slots fill up the old inquired get bumped off and come off the report. So using true credit you can pull every 24 hours, and as long as you pull it creats a soft inquiry which doesn't display to companies that pull your report. And after a few months your slot will be full of your soft inquiries and the old hard inquiries will start to come off. Thats another reason for having a TrueCredit subscription. This only works for TU and EQ though, not EX.
Thank you for that interesting tidbit of info. I will definately keep that in mind. Thanks for all your very helpful advice.
That will work in our favor...because we don't have very many inquiries with EX...most of them are with TU and EQ. Thanks again.
Well I am kinda bummed out now...I couldn't wait to see what our actual scores were...so I went to myFico and signed up for the 30 day free trial....well because we both have fraud alerts on our reports...they can't give us our scores and blah blah...and told me I have to contact each CRA separately...so I go to EX and EQ sites..and do their free trial things...and my EQ score is 92pts lower than my FAKO...how can it be that off? That was a big let down. My hubbys on the other hand was 61pts higher than his FAKO..so that was a plus.. Both of our EX scores were higher...I wasn't prepared for such a drastic shift in pts. on my EQ. I guess I should just look at it as a bump in the road for now. "Time is no longer our enemy, we now embrace it as a friend"
yeah, thats a good attitude to have. Incidently any score you pull off of any website except myfico.com is going to be a FAKO. So if you got a score from a CRA website, such as freecreditreport.com for experian, it is a FAKO. Unless they state that it is your true FICO, and not a PLUS score of some junk like that. THe difference is in the models. Fair Issacs has their own model for scoring.
