Unfortunately online score are misleading and can be off by over 100 points.
In my credit repair practice, I see clients make the fatal mistake of looking at their online score and then applying for a mortgage and be shocked at the low score pulled by the mortgage company
90% of online websites including Experian.com and crediitkarma are showing you an irrelevant scores . Even when you get them from the credit bureau’s own website Disregard “Vantage Scores” and “FICO 8 scores.” For mortgage it needs to be a specific version of Fico:( Fico2 for Experian, Fico 4 for Traunsinon, Fico 5 for Equifax)
WEBSITE THAT SHOW IRRELEVANT CREDIT SCORES
Below are some of the online website that show you irrelevant Vantage scores
(disregard the scores you see on the sites below) :
Experain.com ( unless you pay for the upgraded service )
Creditkarma.com ( Vantage score )
Transunion.com (Vantage score)
Equifax.com (Vantage score)
IdentityIQ.com (Vantage score)
SmartCredit.com (Vantage score)
lifelock.com (Vantage Score)
And many more……
.
MYFICO.COM’s PAID SUBSCRIPTION IS THE ONLY SERVICE THAT SHOWS THE FICO VERSION MORTGAGE LENDERS PULL :
Myfico.com is the only website that will show you all the different versions of Fico .
To get the mortgage version of the Fico score you can use one of the 2 Myfico.com services
-Advanced Version ( provides quarterly credit reports) $29.95 /mo
OR
-Premier Version (provides mostly credit report scores) $39.95 /mo
Once you sign up you’ll get 13 different versions of credit scores, you’ll need to find your mortgage version of the credit sore , which will look like this
These are the score versions the mortgage company uses (look for Fico, 5,4 &2 on Myfico report
Watch this video for details :
HOW YOUR TRI-MERGED MORTGAGE SCORE IS CALCULATED
(IT’S GOVT REGULATED)
Per the Government’s Federal Housing Finance Agency, FHFA
Mortgage lenders are required to pull 3 sepearte versions of Fico.
Experian Fico Version 2
Transunion Fico Version 4
Equifax Fico Version 5
And after that they’re required to take your “Median Credit Score”
EXAMPLE:
if your Scores are 608, 611,, and 700. Your highest score (702) and lowest scores (608) is disregarded and the lender will use your median score (608).
If there are 2 people on the loan, the lender is required to use the person with the lower credit score.
HOW CREDIT SCORES AND CREDIT BUREAUS REALLY WORK:
So there are 3 major credit bureau:
Experian
Equifax
Transunion
These credit bureaus just compile data and account information. They do not produce credit scores. Although their webistes have deals with companies like Fico and vantage to provide credit scores. But keep in mind, the scoring is done from another company.
There are separate companies which provide credit scores:
FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation)
FICO is the gold standard of credit scoring. Since 1989 they’ve been scoring credit reports and they sell their scores to banks. Banks pay the credit bureaus to pull the credit report and then they pay Fico to score the credit reports that were pulled.
FICO has separate scores for each different industry. There is an Auto Loan FICO , a Bank card FICO, and a Classic FICO. Depending on where you go apply for a loan, they’ll pull a different version of FICO
Vantage
This is another company which started producing credit scores. But they came to the game much later. Vantage is not looked at for mortgages and auto loans. And only a tiny number of credit card issuers may look at Vantage. So this is a negligible credit score.
Difference in Score between FICO and Vantage (the latter is used in credit karma):
The score differences between FICO and VANTAGE could be significant. Generally, Vantage seems to show a higher score than different FICO versions by 30-40 points if not more. But its not uncommon for Vantage to be 100 pts higher than FICO or 100 pts lower than FICO
Lastly within FICO , the mortgage and auto loan score could be off by as much as 100 points too.
So its best not to make any assumptions.
