Published September 25, 2012 Learning your credit score helps
you gauge where you stand with lenders and credit card
companies, which is a good step to take before you shop for
credit. But credit scoring is fairly complicated, and
misunderstandings abound. Here are three surprising facts you
should know to interpret your credit score. 1. Scoring models
are geared to produce different results Your credit score is
often touted as one absolute number that grades your credit. But
you can have many different credit scores. Experian, one of the
major U.S. credit reporting bureaus, says some estimates peg the
number of credit scoring models at more than 1,000. The scoring
models used most by creditors are the FICO credit score,
developed by the Fair Isaac Corporation, and the VantageScore,
developed by Experian, Equifax, and Transunion. Sometimes
lenders use their own proprietary credit scoring models. Even
the same credit scoring model has variations. Fair Isaac
developed three FICO score models, one for each of th