Yee-Haw, I have a perfect score, and no reason to ever want to borrow money again for the rest of my life.
I got an e-mail from Experion, telling me they had an updated "credit report" for me. And lo and behold, they have given me a "perfect" credit score of 850. Time to go out and lease a new car! Maybe not.
But what was interesting was that it said "FICO Score 8" next to it. There are eight different FICO (Fair Issac - who is that dude?) scores? Apparently so:
| Experian | Equifax | TransUnion |
| Most widely used version | ||
| FICO® Score 8 | FICO® Score 8 | FICO® Score 8 |
| Versions used in auto lending | ||
| FICO® Auto Score 8 FICO® Auto Score 2 | FICO® Auto Score 8 FICO® Auto Score 5 | FICO® Auto Score 8 FICO® Auto Score 4 |
| Versions used in credit card decisioning | ||
| FICO® Bankcard Score 8 FICO® Score 3 FICO® Bankcard Score 2 | FICO® Bankcard Score 8 FICO® Bankcard Score 5 | FICO® Bankcard Score 8 FICO® Bankcard Score 4 |
| Versions used in mortgage lending | ||
| FICO® Score 2 | FICO® Score 5 | FICO® Score 4 |
| Newly released version | ||
| FICO® Score 9 FICO® Auto Score 9 FICO® Bankcard Score 9 | FICO® Score 9 FICO® Auto Score 9 FICO® Bankcard Score 9 | FICO® Score 9 FICO® Auto Score 9 FICO® Bankcard Score 9 |
That's a lot of different scores, eh? And that is why when we bought the truck, they had a different score than what I got online (funny thing, they wanted a credit check when I wrote them a personal check for the entire purchase price and drove it away).
So of course, your score may vary.
And a perfect score doesn't mean I now qualify for an American Express "black card" or a million-dollar mortgage. Funny thing, but lenders want to see income verification, and my income is in the toilet - largely by design. Since I have no debts to service, I have no bills to pay, other than for food, utilities, and property taxes. Since I take out little money from my IRA to pay these, I pay very little, if any, income taxes.
So even with a "perfect" credit score, the most I could qualify for is a credit card, car loan, or consumer loan, and perhaps a small mortgage - none of which I need or want, or should ever need or want at this point.
Ahh... but the "gurus" all say you should have debt! It's tax deductible! You'll be better off borrowing and investing!
Maybe. But you can't borrow your way to wealth (people do it every day at the payday loan place, it never works out). You can't deduct your way to wealth either.
Of course, the real reason Experion contacted me was they wanted to sell me an upgraded "deluxe" credit monitoring service for a monthly fee. I respectfully declined. We have a security freeze on all three reporting agency accounts - which is free. They also wanted to sell me credit card offers -which Credit Karma does as well. Same old, same old!