Who decided that credit scores should start at 300, and why? Is it just a nice arbitrary number? If scores just fall on a linear distribution from 300 to 850, wouldn’t it just be easier to start at zero and count up to 550? What is the benefit to starting at 300? That seems SO crazy to me.
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Lot of wrong answers here. The right answer is much simpler: There are other FICO scores that go from 0-300. There’s not one “FICO score” — there are hundreds, depending on what bank you’re using, what version you’re using, whether it’s designed for a particular industry, etc. The one most people know about is on a 300-850 range, but it’s not the only one.
Funny story: About a decade ago the credit bureaus introduced their own score, the VantageScore, to try to break up the FICO monopoly. FICO sued them claiming that VantageScore, which at the time used a different scoring range (500 to 990, I think?) infringed a trademark FICO had taken out over the range 300-850 — because some of the numbers overlapped. It went to a jury, and the jury found not only that the trademark wasn’t infringed but also that it was fraudulently obtained. But FICO actually tried to, in effect, trademark three digit numbers. No joke.
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