Why are your credit scores different between reporting agencies?
Why is your credit score different between Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax? All three credit reports are very similar. How much difference is normal between them? When you apply for credit do they look at all three reports and scores? Do loan companies prefer one agency over the others?
You have more than one credit score. FICO is the one that’s used by most people when evaluating your creditworthiness, and even it has several variants based on the type of credit (car loan, mortgage), and depending on who is pulling the report, they might be using an older version of the model.
This should help you to understand how credit scores work..
FICO scores from 300 to 850 and Vantage scores from 501 to 990.
Here is the breakdown for both systems.
Vantage Plus system scores from 501-990.
A-901-990
B-801-900
C-701-800
D-601-700
F-501-600
FICO system scores from 300-850.
Elite-740-& up
Prime-700-739
Preferred-660-699
Standard-625-659
Sub-prime-624-& under
FICO is the only one that matters since it’s the one that all major lenders look at.
So as you can see it depends on if your looking at a true FICO score or a Vantage plus score.
As far as what makes up credit scores it’s the following;
1. Payment history (longer the better) 35%
2. Time in bureau (longer the better) 15%
3. Types of credit (mix of credit cards & installment loans) 10%
4. New credit (new accounts and inquiries) 10%
5. Debt to credit ratio (lower the better) 30%
And just so you will know Experian only uses Vantage, Equifax only uses FICO and Transunion uses both depending of which type of credit report is requested of which there are 3. The standard that people get from the Internet, the auto enhanced which only car dealers and lenders see and the factual which only mortgage people see. The last two are not available to the general public.
To have the very best score and profile people need 3-4 credit card accounts (revolving) with balances below 30% of their credit limits and 2 cars, homes, boats, motorcycles, computers, furniture or personal accounts (installment) all with good long payment history’s.
Add to this that unless you get your scores either direct from either Equifax or myfico.com your getting what’s called a FAKO score which makes it even worse because they all have their own system to calculate scores.
Credit scores are based on the last 24-months of activity, and they can change daily depending on what information has been submitted by your creditors.