As a loan officer I often had verbal conflicts with clients who adamantly protested that they had pulled their credit report online and had much better scores than what I had pulled.  It wasn’t until years later, after I mastered the art of credit repair, that I learned the truth.

Consumer Beware: All Scores Are NOT Equal
 
FICO isn't the only credit scoring model.  It's simply the one lenders use when deciding whether to offer you credit.  It's also not the one people usually receive when they ask for a copy of their own credit report.  You get the same raw data, but you don't get to see the same number that potential lenders see.
 
What makes this very tricky is that the majority of these other scores use the same or similar ranges as the FICO score, so it's easy for the uninitiated to think they mean the same thing.  They don't, and this can be very dangerous in the long run.
 
Dangerous?  Dangerous how, you might ask.
 
Because theses scores are not calculated the same way as FICO, an action that might improve your score in another system might actually lower your FICO score.  This is a problem because the lender is seeing the FICO score, so if you're going to raise one, that's the one you need to raise.
 
Let's look at these other scores and who offers them:
 
TransRisk:  300-850
This is the one you normally get from TransUnion.  Like FICO, it runs from 300 to 850, and also like FICO it's offered for sale to lenders.  They just don't often use it.  Lenders prefer to use FICO, which you can get from TransUnion; it's just hard to find there.  Ever heard of truecredit.com? That’s your tranrisk score, not your FICO.

PLUS Score ™: 330-830
This is the score Experian wants to sell you.  It's a consumer only score that's marketed through several different websites under a number of different brands. Some even claim to be "Free."  The problem with this one is simple, it won't help when it comes to understanding what lenders are seeing.  Freecreditreport.com is your PLUS score.
 
CreditXpert: 350-850
This score is sold by both Intersections and PrivacyGuard, both companies which sell credit-monitoring both directly to the public and also through various corporate deals.  You may be able to buy your CreditXpert score from your bank.   Potential lenders aren't going to be buying it from the credit bureaus, so it doesn't matter when it comes to obtaining credit.
 
FICO: 300-850
This score matters:  potential lenders use FICO to make credit decisions.  If you buy a score this is the only one worth the money.

Note: The best place to obtain your true FICO score on the internet as a consumer is www.myfico.com, which is owned by the Fair Isaac Corporation, the creators of the FICO score.  All the other sites are imposters.

The question that always leaps to mind when looking at these scores is why do they all use similar numbers to FICO?  It's possible to use any range of numbers when building a scoring system.  If a company wanted they could use as simple a rating as 1-10.  Instead they use a number that outwardly resembles the one that lenders see, but is just a little different.
 
Why do you think these numbers all look like FICO?  The simple reason is that they want to make more money.  They’re charging you extra to give you a score even though their score is worthless when applying for credit.  They simply don’t want to pay FICO, so they make their scores look like a FICO score.  They know the average consumer doesn’t know any better.  In fact, they’re counting on it.
 
Remember, if it's not the score the lender's seeing it's not worth the paper it's printed on.

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