A FICO Score is a brand of credit score — FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation and Fair Isaac is the company that developed the software program used by the credit bureaus to compile and calculate credit scores for U.S. consumers.

A new credit scoring model will potentially boost scores for many credit applicants and help establish credit for millions of people who previously had little or no credit history. The new scoring model will be used in the latest version of the VantageScore, the credit score created by the three major credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.

The credit bureaus are more than happy to charge you for your credit score, but you don’t need to pay if you know where to look. There are two major online companies right now which offer consumers a free credit score based on the information found in their credit reports. To be clear, these are not the FICO credit score, which is the industry standard. But the scores are based on the same data and should be a good representation of your FICO score.

If you haven’t started playing the FICO game yet, here are 10 little-known credit cheats that will help you get to the next credit level. There’s one score that follows you around for life — your credit score!

When an individual gets into a serious accident or incurs a large sum of medical bills from an illness, it can be hard to repay the debts before the hospital turns the debts over to a collection agency. Once the debts are at a collection agency, they are placed as line items on that individual’s credit report.