Experian has conflicting FICO score with Cozy?

Question

Hello All,

I have my first rental and decided to go with Cozy. Not sure how I feel about it so far. My biggest concern is that I encourage my applicant to first check their free credit score directly at Experian to make sure it meets our minimum score required. I had one such tenant do that and she confidently applied. Yet when she ran her credit check through Cozy (who uses Experian), literally 3 hours later her credit was 39 points less than what Experian gave her directly. She showed me a screenshot to verify. Has anyone ever had this happen or does anyone know why it might happen? I'm having her get another credit check through TransUnion as the tie-breaker of sorts. I'm just concerned because a number of my applicants have come back with FICO scores pretty close to our requirements and now I'm wondering if they were really higher. I have reached out to Cozy and I am waiting to hear back. I've also encouraged her to reach out to Experian. Thanks in advance for any input.

Russell Brazil · Answer

You have dozens of different Fico scores.  See my post here about it.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/519/topics/843955-whats-your-credit-score

Summer Noyes · Answer

Thank you so much everyone. This helps.

David M. · Answer

@Summer Noyes

Haven't used Cozy, but a quick look at their website makes me wonder..  as they all do.  A few things come to mind to explain the discrepancy.  There are many FICO score models.  So, its common for the score to come out legitamately different when pulled by personally, a loan officer, or through another service (like Cozy).  Also, Cozy seems to allude that THEY are providing the score, but using Experian as their basis.  Otherwise, why would it be "powered by Experian" instead of your Experian score.

This is the same but different as a set of tenants who gave me NTN reports.  NTN gave them 90s out of 100 as the NTN score.  As I recall, their reported credit bureau score (on the NTN report) was in the 600's.  Hmmm...  I'm not used to reading NTN reports nor know how they come up with their scores.  So, I had to ask for the prospective tenants to explain the derogatory info on their credit reports.

If you Google around enough, there is a website that lines up the FICO scores.  For example, I think Fico3 and FICO4 are used for mortgages...  FICO8 is used for auto loans (hint:  the highest available score is higher than for mortgages which is why your score always looks better than when applying for a mortgage because the scales are different).  I'd have to look them up again.

Anyway, I'm sorry I don't have a definitive answer.  I try always to stay apples to apples...  Good luck.