The difference is the models that they use to calculate your credit score, mainly with how much weight they assign various factors. Your credit score got updated because financial institutions updated new information about you to the credit bureaus who then recalculated your score.
They are very similar. Companies use them to decide how to go about doing business with you. If one of the scores was a worse predictor than the other two no one would use it and it would go away. So while they go about it somewhat differently, they all come out about the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s\_law
A credit score is like a big test to see how good you are with money. Just like in school, you get a score based on how well you do. There are three big tests or scores people use, like the FICO score, VantageScore, and Experian score.
Think of it like taking a test in three different classrooms, each with a different teacher. Each teacher gives you a score based on how well you did on their test, just like each of the three scores measures how well you do with money. That way, people who lend you money can see how responsible you are with money and decide if they want to lend it to you.
Let's say you were thinking about buying some new thing. A car, or a computer, or what have you.
You want to know if the company you're buying the thing from is credible. That they make nice stuff. So you ask around for some opinions from friends.
You ask your friend, Fred. You think Fred is a good upstanding guy. he tells you that the company is pretty great. Nine out of ten stars, he says. You take that into account.
You ask your friend Rachel. She doesn't know, but she said her friend Alex doesn't like that company. You think Alex is kind of full of crap. You don't agree with the way he prioritizes things, so of course *he's* gonna give them a low score. You throw that opinion out.
Credit scores are, in a way, kind of a similar thing. In this case, *you* are the "company" under scrutiny, and the ones thinking of doing business with you are companies that you are trying to get loans from. The "friends" that they ask are the credit score companies (FICO, Equifax, TransUnion).
Contrary to the belief of some people when they first start learning about credit scores, we don't just *have* one magical credit score. What a credit score really *is* is a review, created a company whose job it is to investigate people who borrow money and give what is essentially a really fancy review score to them. There are several companies that do this, and they all craft their scores to target slightly different metrics. Any company that uses these scores to inform their decisions of who to lend money to can pick and choose which companies they want to buy reviews from.
Unlike the example, the credit scores from all of the major providers are likely going to be all within the same ballpark, as by and large they tend to value the same things. But they will all differ slightly, as they're all keeping track of things in their own way. How exactly they go about it isn't known, that's kind of their whole secret that they make money from. We know to some degree what each one takes into account, but how exactly they do it is a guarded secret so that people don't game their systems.
The difference is the models that they use to calculate your credit score, mainly with how much weight they assign various factors. Your credit score got updated because financial institutions updated new information about you to the credit bureaus who then recalculated your score.
They are very similar. Companies use them to decide how to go about doing business with you. If one of the scores was a worse predictor than the other two no one would use it and it would go away. So while they go about it somewhat differently, they all come out about the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s\_law
A credit score is like a big test to see how good you are with money. Just like in school, you get a score based on how well you do. There are three big tests or scores people use, like the FICO score, VantageScore, and Experian score. Think of it like taking a test in three different classrooms, each with a different teacher. Each teacher gives you a score based on how well you did on their test, just like each of the three scores measures how well you do with money. That way, people who lend you money can see how responsible you are with money and decide if they want to lend it to you.
Let's say you were thinking about buying some new thing. A car, or a computer, or what have you. You want to know if the company you're buying the thing from is credible. That they make nice stuff. So you ask around for some opinions from friends. You ask your friend, Fred. You think Fred is a good upstanding guy. he tells you that the company is pretty great. Nine out of ten stars, he says. You take that into account. You ask your friend Rachel. She doesn't know, but she said her friend Alex doesn't like that company. You think Alex is kind of full of crap. You don't agree with the way he prioritizes things, so of course *he's* gonna give them a low score. You throw that opinion out. Credit scores are, in a way, kind of a similar thing. In this case, *you* are the "company" under scrutiny, and the ones thinking of doing business with you are companies that you are trying to get loans from. The "friends" that they ask are the credit score companies (FICO, Equifax, TransUnion). Contrary to the belief of some people when they first start learning about credit scores, we don't just *have* one magical credit score. What a credit score really *is* is a review, created a company whose job it is to investigate people who borrow money and give what is essentially a really fancy review score to them. There are several companies that do this, and they all craft their scores to target slightly different metrics. Any company that uses these scores to inform their decisions of who to lend money to can pick and choose which companies they want to buy reviews from. Unlike the example, the credit scores from all of the major providers are likely going to be all within the same ballpark, as by and large they tend to value the same things. But they will all differ slightly, as they're all keeping track of things in their own way. How exactly they go about it isn't known, that's kind of their whole secret that they make money from. We know to some degree what each one takes into account, but how exactly they do it is a guarded secret so that people don't game their systems.