How to find out your score?

[idonthaveaname]

I used the annual free report for a 3 bureaus but they don't tell me my scores. Anyway to find out without paying?

[chane]

No, the only way to find out your real credit scores (FICO) is at MyFICO.com and you have to pay for them. (Or you can apply for a loan and ask the lender for a copy of your scores, but that will count as a hard inquiry on your credit report.)

[idonthaveaname]

Thanks,

So what do most people do? I mean it seems kind of expensive to be doing that all the time?

[chane]

Most people sign up for a credit monitoring service. It's like $15 a month, but they don't get real scores. It's not a good situation, but if you want your real scores, the only place to get them is MyFico...at least as far as I know. If anyone knows anything else, please chime in.

[idonthaveaname]

Thanks for the info!

[Lian]

MyFico is a contorted cross-licensing agreement between the CRAs and Fair Isaac. First, the CRAs license the scoring algorithms from Fair Isaac, which permits them to use the FI algorithms to produce credit scores. The actual scores are generated by the CRA, and become their property. Each time the CRA produces and sells a FICO score, they pay a royalty back to FI. The CRAs have the data, and FI has the algorithms.

Until a couple of years ago, each CRA then had a cross-licensing agreement with FI that sold the generated scores back to FI for their sale on their myFico site.

Exp terminated their agreement to sell scores back to FI a couple of years ago. Thus, the commercial myFico site can no longer provide EX scores. EX is free to sell their scores to others, while of course paying a fee for each back to FI. EX can license others to use their FICO scores. In fact, there is a CU somewhere in the east (I cant remember their name or location) that has such an agreement with EX, and you can get a FICO score from them. It is up to EX, as long as they comply with their intial licensing agreement with FI.