[omegafund]

When a merchant (or you and me) for that matter pull your own credit you are not looking at a FICO score. You are looking at Experian, Equifax and Trans Union's own internal risk score. That's why 90% of the time when a merchant tells you "I just checked my credit yesterday and it's 650" then the lender declines the deal because their actual FICO score is 550.

We as US citizens have over 800 credit scores and they all have different scoring methods for different purposes. The FICO score is just the calculation method used by lenders in general.

Also, the only place to check your own personal FICO is as myfico.com but there is a fee involved. Pretty cheap though, I have the service and it's less than $30 a month.

Yeah I know that is why I said not the same thing. But if you know how to read credit reports you can see open tradelines,timeline,balances,judgements etc inquiries,etcc. Good starting point if you are not going to pull credit. Have merchant pull all 3 reports and have them see the differences educate them and let them know a lender things are scored differently. If you see lots of inquiries, late pays etc you know a lender will not view that great.