“ How the heck could my credit scores be off by that much, in just one month, when nothing has changed?“ That is the question that I was being asked by a gentleman who had just had a lender pull his credit for a mortgage. It only took few questions to realize that the difference was caused by the difference in the sources of the scores he was comparing. I have touched on this subject before, but it is worth touching on again. There are a bunch of credit scores out there that tell a story about each of us to potential lenders and others. There are scores used for renting an apartment, scores for buying an automobile, and, of course, we know about the scores for getting a mortgage, just to name a few. Keep in mind that credit scores are intended to determine, mathematically, the level of risk involved in lending money to a person, based upon current and past behavior, and the chance of of that defaulting on the loan. High scores indicate lower risk and low scores not so much. All of these scores, that professionals pull, have an applied purpose. These scores are tools for making a specific business decision. Outside of the arena they are designed for, they are essentially useless. There are some that might want to argue that a bit, but put into context, there is little to debate. A score is not useful if it can not be used for an...