I just bought my TU score, rather than my FICO score (myFICO.com couldn't provide my score for some reason). The TU score was 710, but the analysis says this score is between "Fair" and "Poor," which confuses me. When I bought my FICO score on 12/9/04, the FICO score was 682. The only change to my TU report was that Citibank MC increased my credit limit by $1100. How far off from FICO is the TU FAKO score? I know it's just a number, but this is confusing and irritating. Thanks in advance for any help!
Was your credit increase accompanied by a hard credit inquiry, which is likely if you actually requested it? This could slightly depress your FICO score for a few months. An increase in your credit limit with no change in your total debt or other reported items will only improve your credit score. I have no idea of how to correlate FAKO and FICO. With FICO, they do provide what percentile of consumers are better or worse than your score. Does FAKO provide this?
Thanks for responding. I didn't request a credit limit increase - Citibank gave it to me automatically. I checked my inquiries, and they hadn't entered a hard inquiry... According to the analysis from TU, it said that my score was only better than 43% of others. What also confuses me is the reasons they give: 1. Too many recently opened accounts (I guess because I opened one in Nov and one in Dec), 2. Revolving account balances too high in proportion to credit limits (I don't understand this one - TU only shows one credit card, with a balance of 1900 and a CL of 5300), 3. Too few satisfactory accounts (Again, I don't understand - out of 10 accounts, I have one negative C/O from 1998, and of the remaining nine, four have a zero balance), 4. Installment account balances too high in proportion to credit limits (I can understand this - my mortgage, student loan and home equity loans are all less than two years old). The score range TU shows is between 400 and 925. I guess I never thought a 710 on any scale would be considered between Fair and Poor.
I emailed Trans Union customer service regarding the disparity between my score and analysis, my FICO score and analysis, and even the sample score and analysis from Trans Union. They gave me a song and dance about how lenders use various scoring models and how scores differ slightly - all of which were irrelevant to my question. They then decided (in a huff) that my question was resolved. I let them know that their score/analysis product, and its related customer service, are useless. So much for TU Personal Score! Thanks, everyone!
With a score range between 400 and 925, this score is not comparable to FICO. All you can say is larger is better. Don't put too much credence in automatically generated explanations. Was your 1998 C/O paid? Regardless you will want to make sure it falls off after the 7 years. Do any of your accounts show late paying, such as "30 days late" several times, etc. or are they all "paid as agreed"? It may be that your score is low primarily because of your recent mortgage debt. As this accumulates a good payment history it may pull your scores up. You want good scores going into financing major purchases. It's less critical, and you can't expect, that they stay as high after your new debt shows up on your reports. Your earlier high scores served their purpose. The goal is not to maximize the score, but to maximize your net worth.
Thanks, ontrack! Your viewpoint makes sense to me. This board is great! When I first discovered it about 3 years ago, all of my scores were in the low 500's due to a BK7. With the help of this board, I have a house, one prime CC, one credit score in the 700's and the other two on the way to 700. You guys rock!
