Am I being credit negged?
May 14, 2012 2:56 PM Subscribe
Credit scores - is there such a thing as consumer vs professional scores?
While talking to a mortgage broker about pre-approval the broker checked my credit score - and came back with a much lower number than the credit bureaus have on the consumer credit safechecks my husband and I have. He explained this by saying that there is a difference in the scores we as consumers can see vs what the professionals see. Um, what?
I admit to not being as financially literate as I'd like to be, but this doesn't smell right. I will ask him more about it, but I'd like to have done my homework first and google-fu has failed me.
Does anyone have an idea on what's going on here?
While talking to a mortgage broker about pre-approval the broker checked my credit score - and came back with a much lower number than the credit bureaus have on the consumer credit safechecks my husband and I have. He explained this by saying that there is a difference in the scores we as consumers can see vs what the professionals see. Um, what?
I admit to not being as financially literate as I'd like to be, but this doesn't smell right. I will ask him more about it, but I'd like to have done my homework first and google-fu has failed me.
Does anyone have an idea on what's going on here?
P.S. Thanks to Evernote, I was just easily able to find where I originally got this information from.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:06 PM on May 14, 2012
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:06 PM on May 14, 2012
Best answer: FICO has information about its mortgage-industry product here. It also sells models tailored for the auto and bankcard industries.
posted by mullacc at 3:13 PM on May 14, 2012
posted by mullacc at 3:13 PM on May 14, 2012
Best answer: If you are getting your scores from a credit monitoring service, those scores are not true FICO scores, but are in-house estimates of your likely FICO scores.
(since a true FICO score is proprietary and costs additional money, most credit monitoring services develop in-house algorithms meant to mirror FICO but aren't always accurate).
posted by trivia genius at 8:03 PM on May 14, 2012
(since a true FICO score is proprietary and costs additional money, most credit monitoring services develop in-house algorithms meant to mirror FICO but aren't always accurate).
posted by trivia genius at 8:03 PM on May 14, 2012
Response by poster: Thanks! Very helpful and reassuring.
posted by cestmoi15 at 7:03 PM on May 15, 2012
posted by cestmoi15 at 7:03 PM on May 15, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
It's not so much 'professional scores' as I understand it but that mortgage rate scores are different than the scoring you get from the consumer credit checks you are talking about. I understand it mortgage scoring is usually tougher then the normal consumer scoring. Both are FICO scores utilizing the same system, but give different weight to different things. For example, consumer models don’t give a much weight to collection items, whereas the mortgage scoring system does.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:03 PM on May 14, 2012