Auburn Journal : Business Most mortgage programs use credit scores as major components of their qualification criteria. The mortgages are approved or denied based on the level of risk as seen or determined by the underwriter or the automated underwriting computer system. This level of risk has nothing to do with risk of foreclosure - it has to do with the risk of late payments, a major misconception in its own right. Risk-based lending relies more and more on credit scores. The mortgage industry uses FICO credit scores, as opposed to one or two other scoring systems used by the automobile industry and the credit card industry. Therefore, myth number one is that there is a single credit scoring system. A version of this myth is that a particular score from one scoring system applies to other scoring systems. Many times clients have come into the office reporting a score in the 700s based on a visit to an automobile dealership a few days before when they were shopping for a car. However, when their credit report was pulled based on their highest FICO score, it only showed 650.