{"id":3257,"date":"2017-04-04T11:53:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T18:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/?p=3257"},"modified":"2017-04-04T11:54:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T18:54:51","slug":"credit-scores-make-no-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/loans\/credit-scores-make-no-sense\/","title":{"rendered":"Credit Scores Make No Sense"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spend a lot of time talking about whether or not the free credit scores from CreditKarma<\/a>, or the WalletHub free credit scores<\/a>, or the credit scores from Credit Sesame<\/a>\u00a0are “real credit scores<\/a>” or not. The reality is that most of the time, it doesn’t actually matter. If it’s a Tuesday afternoon and you are sitting on your porch with a cold one, it\u00a0is irrelevant whether your credit score is 714 or 723 or 815. The only time it matters, is when you are actually getting a loan.<\/p>\n

An interesting situation this weekend has shown me that even those real credit scores aren’t really real.<\/p>\n

Real Credit Scores<\/h3>\n

When most people talk about a “real” credit score, they mean a FICO score. Most lenders rely upon FICO scores to make a decision about lending or what interest rate you get. The catch is that there are numerous kinds of FICO scores ranging from those used to judge creditworthiness for credit cards, a different one for car loans, and another still for mortgages. Beyond that, there are three major credit bureaus and all three of them can yield a different score depending upon what has been reported to each company. In other words, your real credit score can be many different numbers at any given time.<\/p>\n

Here is where it gets really weird.<\/p>\n

\"credit<\/a>
A credit score as real as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a former financial planner, I still have people reach out to me from time to time about financial matters. Usually, I’ve seen it before, and I’m happy to help, but this time was a little different.<\/p>\n

The person was applying for a certain kind of loan. For the purposes of this loan, you get the best possible terms with a credit score over 735. They pulled two different credit reports, and as I mentioned above they did have two different numbers. One was 736, and one was 733.<\/p>\n