Each credit bureau had different information and a different FICO score. Not all credit card companies, department stores, banks and other creditors report your credit activity to all three credit bureaus. Some creditors don't report your credit history to any credit bureau, presumably because they want to keep your good (or bad) credit to themselves. This can hurt if you are trying to establish credit because your credit card company, department store or gasoline company doesn't report your on-time payments.

FICO says consumers in the range of 750-799 have a delinquency rate of 2 percent. But FICO scores below 500 have an 83 percent default rate, 500-529 shows a 72 percent delinquency rate, in the 550-599 range there is a 52 percent probability of delinquency, 600-649 scores show a 31 percent delinquency rate, and 650-699 have a 15 percent delinquency rate. Over 700 the delinquency rate drops to 5 percent up to 749. If your FICO score is 800 or over, you have a 1 percent delinquency likelihood.

The median FICO score is 723 - meaning an equal number of individuals have FICO scores above and below that number. Most mortgage lenders consider a FICO score above 680 will entitle you to the lowest interest rate. The www.myfico.com web site provides lots of valuable insights on how to improve your FICO score.

Virtually all creditors now use FICO scores to rate credit and mortgage applications. But each creditor's criteria vary widely.

However, a major FICO flaw is their scores do not consider your income, savings, IRA and retirement accounts in relationship to your credit. FICO scores only weigh the length of your credit history, on-time payments (even one late payment beyond 30 days hurts FICO scores), number of credit accounts, percentage of balances to available credit, collections, derogatory public records (such as judgments and unpaid property taxes), and number of recent credit inquiries with the past six months.

Before applying for credit, it is very smart to invest in your 3-in-1 credit reports and FICO scores. Incidentally, your own personal credit report purchases do NOT show up or count as an "inquiry," which can hurt your FICO score if you have too many inquiries by creditors in the last six months.  Although you can go to each credit bureau's individual Web site to obtain your credit report and their version of your FICO score, the easiest and best place to obtain all this information is at www.myfico.com. Maybe your credit reports and FICO scores are better than you think.

If you find mistakes that are hurting your FICO score, each credit bureau includes either an online, telephone or mail procedure to correct the errors. Be sure to follow up because the credit bureaus are not famous for great customer service! After you register an error, by federal law each credit bureau has 30 days to either verify their information is correct or remove unverified information. Ask for a free corrected copy of your credit report after the error is removed.