I went to buy a car yesterday, after having checked my scores through Truecredit faithfully, and working to get my scores up. When the dealer pulled my scores they were 100 points lower. What gives? I showed them the scores as they appeared online and there is a discrepancy.
TrueCredit scores are "FAKO" scores... that is, they are computed using TrueCredit's own proprietary algorithm, which creditors never use. The only way to get the real scores is from Fair Isaac, through myFico.com. Those are the scores that are actually used by lenders. Be prepared for sticker shock when you see what it will cost to get your real scores, though. Somewhere up in the stickied posts there's a discount code that will save you a few bucks.
Potential creditors get different reports/details and scores than the mickey mouse crap that you get from your online information.
so... Then it does me very little good to go through Truecredit. I want to know my real scores so I can me informed before I go to buy a car or get a loan. I have been working to get things off my report, happily watching my scores improve through Truecredit, and I find its full of...
Even if you get your scores directly from MyFico, it doesn't mean that's the score that the car dealer will get. There are many variants of the score. That is what is so misleading--there isn't just one score, there are many. There are scores that are used for auto loans, commonly called an auto-enhanced score. It counts things differently. So, bottom line, sites like TrueCredit are good for monitoring and seeing progress, but you can't rely on the score. You will probably not be able to get an auto-enhanced score anywhere except through a car dealer. It's an algorithm developed for auto loans.
TrueCredit is GREAT for monitoring your progress at removing things from your report. You can update it daily for $14.95 per month. It's just not so good for the actual scores. MyFico is great for the actual scores, but at $14.95 PER REPORT, you can't update it as often. Personally, I subscribe to TrueCredit for daily monitoring purposes, and I get my scores from MyFico occasionally.
