experian TRUE score

[wayne-o]

When I pulled my experian credit report they give a number called TRUE score. Is this my FICO # or something completely different.....thanks

[Logan]

different

[FilingOnMyOwn]

Its not a fico score. I believe Experian's fako scores are considered 'vantage' scores.

[aa06a47]

experien's "true" score is slightly higher than your fico score. They use a different formula than fico and from my past experience, the true scrore is about 20-50 points higher than your actual fico score.

[frankies_mom]

if they go by FICO, then why even have this TRUE score? I would think that would cause confusion and leave people disappointed if they think their scores are really higher than what they are.

[poorme]

Only Equifax posts your FICO. We know of one credit card, WAMU, that posts your FICO from TU. My TU FICO from WAMU is lower than my TU 'score' on the tu site.

There's no incentive for the 3 cra's to accurately report your scores. They are in competition with one another and $ell their 'enhanced' services and score modeling to creditors and individuals. Whatever they can do to make themselves look better is how they make their money.

So if you really want to monitor your real scores, buy your FICO's directly from myfico.com a couple of times a year - no more. You can use the monitoring services from the 3 cra's if you want - but only to watch alerts, inquiries, and general score movement. If your fako's go up, then likely your FICO has also. Or, you can get free reports from them periodically as allowed or through creditors, banks, etc.