The quick answer is NO. To understand why read on.
First, it is important to understand the only two things these two companies have in common are they both generate credit scores.
FICO, as it’s branded named, was created by a company called Fair Issac Company, later changed to Fair Issac Corporation. As of the date of this posting, FICO is the most common credit score used in the credit market. FICO has many scoring models and different versions which lead to some confusion. Some FICO models have different score ranges and this alone causes confusion.
Vantage Score is a real scoring model developed in 2006 by a collaborative effort from the big 3 credit reporting agencies (Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian). Over the past 7 years, Vantage scoring has been making some progress in gaining some market share. To date, Vantage has a number of versions of their software with the latest being called Vantage 3.0. The earlier versions of Vantage Scoring came with a range from 501-990 and associated a letter grade with your score. The newest version has a score range from 300-850 (same as the most common FICO range) and still has a letter grade associated with it.
Lenders pick and choose what scoring models they wish to use. In any given day, you can apply for a mortgage, credit card, student loan, and auto and get 12 different credit scores. If each of these banks used either different scoring model or different versions of the same model, you would have 12 different scores. I say 12 assuming they score your Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian.
If you find yourself confused in the credit score world, don’t worry, you are not alone. Just keep one thing in mind. If you want to have the highest score regardless of what model or version is used, follow these tips. Make all your payments on time, stay clear of collections, apply for credit only when needed and keep your revolving credit balances to a minimum.
Curemyscore.com is a professional service that assists its clients with credit scoring and debt solutions.
Credit Reporting / Scoring Expert, Chris McConville is the President of Credit Education at CureMyScore.com and founder of myexpertcreditwitness.com where he works as an Expert Credit Witness in both Federal and State Court. With working in the credit and mortgage fields since 1991, he’s dedicated to sharing his knowledge to educate consumers.
