You Have 30 Or More Official Credit Scores

First, some background: Each of the three major credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion — collects information about you from financial institutions and public records that they use to compute your credit score. These three bureaus generally use a standardized credit scoring system created by the Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO), which is why the scores provided by these bureaus are referred to as “FICO scores.”

Just as Apple regularly releases new versions of the iPhone, FICO also releases newer, more accurate versions of how it calculates your base score. The newest base score model is called the FICO 9, but prior versions of it — FICO 8 and FICO 5 — are still in use, and your base score may be different in each model.

What is less well-known is that each bureau also creates multiple versions of their credit score. In the same way that Apple created the iPad to meet different needs than the iPhone, FICO has also created industry-specific credit scores, like the FICO Auto Score and the FICO Bankcard Score. Each scoring version is calculated differently by modifying how certain parts of your credit history are weighted. You may have 30 or more different versions of your credit score from the three major bureaus alone!