Credit Score prediction / pulling sites

Greetings Red Phoenix Nation! Hope the battle in the world of credit treats you well! I chat it up a lot about those web-sites where you can pull your credit and see your "scores." They have now added another dimension to their sales techniques of getting you to sign up or at NOT cancel your subscription after you pull your credit. I see them advertise you can log onto your account and actually see what will improve your score. OH THE FUN I COULD HAVE RIPPING THEM!!! However, I am a professional so I'm going to give you some education and a few reminders to go along with what they are telling you. The first thing we need to be reminded of is when you go to these web sites to get your "score" your are pulling a Vantage Credit Score. Vantage is a credit scoring algorythem used by the bureaus to sell the consumers on a monthly service. Vantage is not used by lenders and is quite different from your FICO credit score. With that being said I have a question. If the scores are that different then would using one of there credit score analyzers be much different? Yes! They are telling you how to improve your Vantage Score (AGAIN, CALCUALTED DIFFERENT THAN FICO) I've actually logged on to one just to see for myself. I was told that to improve my score I would need to open another credit card. Hmmmmm? That's weird becuase I have three of them with low balances. Not that this would be the case for everyone but I'm assuming it may not be much different. I think its another way for them to cross sell and pre-qualify credit products with their partners. They cross sell all the time, Wells Fargo's "credit monitoring" system is actually Experian and same with Discover. I think HSBC was using Equifax but since Cap One bought HSBC I'm not sure anymore. Point being, they do a lot of business together so by selling credit products to "improve" your score is a natural progression. Be aware of what's going on out there, you can improve your credit different ways. Paying debts and paying on time of course is the best but you can get negative items deleted off your credit. As always if you want to know your score that lenders use www.myfico.com Have questions, need help? I am always around... www.redphoenixco.com john@redphoenixco.com