The Last Day to Get Your Experian FICO Score is February 13

Posted by Erik on February 5th, 2009

There is clearly no love lost between Experian, one of the three credit bureaus, and Fair Isaac, the company that creates FICO scores. We were notified today via email by Fair Isaac that as of February 14, 2009 (yes – Valentine's Day), consumers will no longer be able to purchase or access in any way their Experian FICO score. It seems Experian has terminated the agreement that allowed Fair Isaac to give consumers their Experian FICO score effective February 14. From the email:

Fair Isaac has long been committed to empowering consumers with information. Besides helping consumers understand and manage their credit profiles, we believe that consumers are entitled to know their FICO® scores from all three major credit bureaus, since these are the scores lenders use to make credit decisions.

We were recently notified that, effective February 14th, Experian will no longer allow consumers to view their FICO® scores based upon Experian data. FICO® scores from Equifax and TransUnion will continue to be available on myFICO.com.

There have been ongoing lawsuits between the two companies that have obviously not helped foster any ongoing agreements. Experian has been trying for years to unseat the FICO score as the primary credit score lenders and consumers seem to want. Because of the strong FICO brand, Fair Isaac has been able to make the vast majority of the profit on any Experian FICO scores sold. Apparently, Experian finally had enough.

This is obviously bad news from a consumer perspective. FICO scores are the most common type of credit scores used by lenders and it's quite valuable for you to know all three of your scores. Lenders will still be able to use your Experian FICO score to evaluate your creditworthiness, you just won't be able to find out what that score is.  However, consumers will still be able to get Experian credit scores, just not Experian FICO scores, and most types of credit scores will be very good approximations of your FICO score. In fact, our top-rated credit monitoring service, Identity Guard Total Protection, will continue to give you all three bureaus' credit scores and reports free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial. See our comparison of credit monitoring services to see other options.

But for those of you who want to know all three of your FICO scores, you need to act fast! You can still buy them from myFICO with FICO Credit Complete until February 14. You'll still be able to get your Equifax and TransUnion scores through FICO Standard beyond that date . Come Valentine's Day, though, Experian and FICO's volatile relationship will be over and the ability to know for certain your Experian FICO score will be a thing of the past.

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