FICO Or FAKO – How Do You Tell?

More and more banks and credit card issuers are offering free credit scores. Some of them are free FICO scores, whilst others are actually FAKO scores. Before we go any further it’s probably important to discuss the difference:

[Read: FICO Or FAKO – What’s The Difference?]

A few days ago Capital One announced that they were officially releasing a free credit score to all of their card holders. A lot of people wrongly assumed that this was a FICO score and when corrected often asked “How do you tell which score is FAKO and which is FICO”, here’s the answer:

  • If it’s a FICO score, it’ll be advertised as such. FICO is a powerful brand name, if a bank or card issuer is actually giving you a FICO score – they’ll let you know about. I don’t know of any banks or card issuers currently offering a FICO score that don’t advertise that fact.
  • Check the press release. Usually when they make these offerings they do a big press campaign as well. The press release will usually contain some information on the actual credit score they are using if it’s not a FICO score.
  • Check this blog. We’re all over announcements like this and will not only tell you if it’s a FICO score, but also if it’s an industry specific FICO score or a classic score along with what credit bureau the data is based on.
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MLH
MLH (@guest_17675)
July 6, 2014 11:06

So I applied for the Arrival card for her, and she was approved, but only with a 2.5k credit line. And now her most current scores from different sources are as follows.

7-5 Barclaycard FICO – 779
6-27 DCU – 716
6-9 Amex application – Experian – 790

We’re still waiting for the welcome packet and cards from Barclay to come, so that also might have a score in the welcome materials. But it appears as though her score is actually that high. Although Equifax might still be scoring her lower for whatever reason.

MLH
MLH (@guest_13607)
June 14, 2014 23:34

I wasn’t sure where to post this, but I think it fits somewhat in this post. Let me know if you think this makes sense. My SO’s first CC was with Old Navy when she signed up for the CC to get a discount without knowing what she was really doing. The bill ended up being 60 days overdue before she finally figured out what had happened, and then she paid it off and closed it. This was in 2011. She hasn’t had a card since, and was denied for 2 student-geared cards in the fall of 2012. Since then I’ve added her to all of my cards as an AU to try and help her score. We applied for Barclays NFL card several months ago and she was denied, reason being she had no other CCs. Through this all of her FAKOs were being reported in the 680-690 range. About 2 months ago, she was approved for a card through DCU, which provides her score monthly from Equifax, and it was 683 at the end of May. This week I decided to see if she would be approved for the Amex Blue Cash. Surprisingly, she was. [B]Even more surprisingly in her packet with the card and agreement, was a letter about her credit score and such, and it said it was 790, from Experian.[/B] I’m still blown away by that. Obviously that has to be more legit than the FAKO scores, but the score from DCU is a true FICO score. Maybe that will jump up really high when she gets it at the end of June, who knows. I’ll probably wait a month just to see what happens to her FAKOs, and what her score from Equifax/DCU is before applying for other cards for her. Thoughts?

MLH
MLH (@guest_13611)
June 14, 2014 23:54

Interesting. With her Amex welcome packet it also said she has the right to access the report within 60 days, so I’ll probably go that route. I thought that was only for denials? Also, if I get her/my credit report from a place like Mint, that’s usually accurate, right? Even though the scores are FAKO? When I looked at mine from Mint, it seemed to have everything listed correctly.

MLH
MLH (@guest_13690)
June 15, 2014 09:57

Huh, ok. I’ll take a crappy APR for a free credit report any day. And I’m aware of the free credit reports from annual credit report, I’ll just have to figure out which ones we’ve already pulled for her this year. But I know we haven’t pulled all three so I’ll see which ones we can still get. Thanks for the info.

MLH
MLH (@guest_13742)
June 15, 2014 17:11

Interesting. I’ll gladly take a crappy APR for a free credit report. I just checked her TransUnion report and Experian reports, and both report the Old Navy account, which was 60 days past due before it was paid and closed. So if it was in fact reported to Experian then I have no clue why her score could be so much higher with them than it apparently is with the others. I think more clarity will come when she gets her monthly score from DCU at the end of the month.