PLUS vs FICO: What a difference!
I’ve been using Experian’s CreditExpert service since January, as Money 2006 came with a free year of service. CreditExpert is just a simple credit monitoring service, it is pretty decent, though kind of barebones. But it is free, so I don’t have any problems using it for now.
As a part of it, you routinely get credit score updates or you can go through and request your score for free at any time. I usually log in once a month or so to check on my score and see if there are any alerts. The whole time, I’ve been aware that the credit score it gives you is Experian’s own PLUS Score, and not the actual FICO score that lenders use. But the one thing I wasn’t aware of is how much the PLUS Score can vary from your FICO score.
Since I’m looking to buy a house in a couple of months, I’ve been itching to find out what my actual FICO score is so that I can evaluate where I stand. My PLUS Score is currently 642 (with a range of 330-830). I thought that was not too shabby, given that I’m going to pay some things off before we buy a house, I figured I could easily hit 660-670 within a few months.
Then I went and ran my FICO score on myFico. First off, I like myFico’s service. It looks pretty thorough, gives your actual FICO score, and has email alerts and all that jazz. Though I was surprised how deceiving the PLUS Score can be. My FICO score with Equifax came back as 563! My jaw literally dropped. I had a nearly 80 point difference! And in that range, in makes a huge difference.
My credit score is mostly where it is due to two things (well, 4 if you count them, but 2 high level): my balance and I had 3 negative points on my report. The negative points kind of chaps my ass. All three of the negative points are essentially my fault, though 2 of them are somewhat BS. The one that definitely is my fault is my late payment on my Chase card just after I got married. The first BS one is a late payment to my Best Buy card… I was late because I delayed in paying it because they charged me interest when they shouldn’t have (0% for 3 months was BS, even though I had the balance paid in time). I was slow with resolving it and ended up being late, and just over 30 days late. My fault for delaying, but would have never happened if they didn’t charge me interest when they shouldn’t have. And the 2nd BS thing was a collections item from my last apartment complex. The complex realized after we moved out that they’d forgotten to bill my roommate and I for one of the garages we rented the whole time we were there. We were paying for it the whole time, but it wasn’t linked to our account so it was giving us a credit. So when we came in to pay our move out expenses, we had a $200 credit when we should have been at $0 balance. They didn’t tell us we had a $200 credit, and it was after we moved out that they realized the goof. And instead of picking up the phone and trying to call someone, they sent us to collections. And the notice came at the wondrous time right before my roommate’s wedding, and then with my wedding 3 weeks later, so it didn’t get paid right when it came.
One good thing (I suppose) is that I’ve only seen that collections item on my Equifax report, and not on Experian or TransUnion. When it comes time to actually get a house, I will likely order all 3 reports with their FICO scores to see where I stand with them.
As far as 563 goes, that is pretty crappy. In fact, I’d likely have a really hard time qualifying for a mortgage. So, I got some work to do. Over the next several months, with some good payments and just keeping up on payments, my score should be able to reach 600-620 quite easily. Using their “FICO Score Simulator” it wouldn’t be very hard. The trouble is that I would prefer to get it around 660 at least. As I get closer, will have to look at ways to pay off extra, see how my score is with the other credit agencies, and will have to see what I can do with the mortgage broker. I may be able to explain some of the things to them to lessen how much they hurt me.
