Credit Reports

[bobbything]

Just so you know, the scores you get from those websites are useless. They use their own formulas to calculate them. The only scores that matter come from FICO.

It's kind of difficult to wrap your brain around at first, but here's the easiest way to look at it...

Experian, Equifax, and Transunion all own their own website(s). For instance, freecreditscore.com is owned by Experian. truecredit.com is owned by Transunion. Etc. And each website/company has their own scoring model. So, if you sign up at freecreditscore.com (Experian), you'll get your credit scores for Experian, Transunion, and Equifax...but those scores are based off freecreditscore.com (Experian's) scoring model. Same deal if you use truecredit.com (Transunion)...or any other website. Needless to say, the scores are going to vary from website to website. For instance, your Experian score from freecreditscore.com is going to be different from your Experian score from truecredit.com.

The biggest problem with this is that lenders don't use those scores to make their lending decisions.

The only place you can go to get the credit scores that lenders use is myFICO.com. FICO is the scoring model that lenders use. There, you can get your FICO Transunion and Equifax scores (you can't get your Experian score, don't ask me why). Or, you can have a lender pull the scores for you (which will ding your report. Pulling it yourself doesn't ding it).

I'm a nazi about my credit report and credit scores. You can use any of those websites to monitor your credit reports, fix errors, etc. But the credit scores themselves should be obtained from myFICO.com.

PM me if you have any questions about this. myFICO.com also has a great message board that can answer tons of questions. The simple way to look at it is, use any of the above recommended websites to monitor your credit report but ignore the scores. Go myFICO.com for your scores.