Credit Karma

[boater07]

Is it a good idea to sign up for this free service? I'm usually afraid to put personal info out there.
yet-I'm curious to see what is going on with my scores

[moghopper]

I recommend this service. You'll have to disclose certain personal information (It is a credit service, after all), but in my opinion, well worth it.

It operates on a "freemium" model, so while it is free, you may have to put up with some ads, etc.

[toothcarpenter]

I have use Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, and Quizzle. They have gotten alot better in the last year. It's nice to see a fake FICO, but now I have a few credit cards that show the real FICO, so that's less exciting. The apps for credit karma and credit sesame are pretty nice. It monitors your credit report too and alerts you to changes, so that's nice. I'm less concerned about privacy, since this is info the credit report companies already have, a breach is possible always - I use 1Password and have complex passwords, so I'm doing my part. I say do it. I like credit sesame the best.

[LateStarter1975]

I recommend this service. You'll have to disclose certain personal information (It is a credit service, after all), but in my opinion, well worth it.

It operates on a "freemium" model, so while it is free, you may have to put up with some ads, etc.

I agree. I use Credit karma and their fake FICO scores are pretty close to the real score (I know this b/c I compared the scores to our real scores when we shopped for mortgage). I have not heard any significant complaints against this company. Go for it

[prudent]

I use Credit karma and their fake FICO scores are pretty close to the real score (I know this b/c I compared the scores to our real scores when we shopped for mortgage).

Caveat: that is true for some people but not all. Some have reported a difference of 70 points between FICO and CK (and between FICO and CreditSesame for that matter). Mine was off about 15 points which is not that meaningful but 70 points is night and day.

CK is good for monitoring accounts and accuracy of records, but if an major credit decision under consideration is going to hinge on a FICO score, buy the FICO score. Best to know beforehand. Kind of too bad that lenders have been practically forced to use scores when making decisions, so there can be no hint of favoritism or anti-favoritism. There was a day when your banker could make a judgment call based on knowing you and your situation, and the score was only one factor.

[IPer]

Credit Karma gives a great indication. There are some that will comment here that it is bogus. And will
refer you to a few articles that when it all comes down to if you want to get an indication or the direction
of your credit, free, and don't want to submit applications every time then Credit Karma may be good for you.
I have been on there for over 5 years and have not had any issues with security from it yet.

[nordlead]

CreditKarma uses the Vantage Score 3.0. This is a legitimate score as much as FICO is, it just isn't nearly as popular (FICO controls like 90% of the credit score market).

The important thing with using websites like CreditKarma and CreditSesame though, is that they allow you to check your credit report (the important thing) more often than once per year for free. If you have no negative marks and a few years of credit history, it doesn't really matter what your score is. I can almost guarantee it'll be above 720 FICO, which is considered excellent.

[eucalyptus]

It operates on a "freemium" model, so while it is free, you may have to put up with some ads, etc.

The etc including of course collecting personal info and monetizing it themselves and through sharing.

[Browser]

Alan Roth recently recommended Credit Karma. Says he uses it himself.

[pdriese]

I've used this service for a couple years now. I like it and recommend it. It's a bit more user friendly than the free annualcreditreport.com with the added benefit of seeing your credit score.

[new2bogle]

I use credit karma and I like it.

The fake FICO score was a bit off for me. Credit Karma showed 790 and when I got a car loan it was 850, which was a surprise to me.

[FuyuKei]

As far as websites go your personal info is pretty safe with them. The score is pretty accurate, too.

[grabiner]

The fake FICO score was a bit off for me. Credit Karma showed 790 and when I got a car loan it was 850, which was a surprise to me.

This suggests that the FICO score itself was not on the usual scale. On the most common 300-850 scale, an 850 FICO is perfect, and if you had a perfect FICO, you should have a near-perfect score on any other scale as well. Some versions of FICO go to 900.

Even when two scores have the same range, they may not be on the same scale. It makes more sense to compare percentile rankings; if your score is in the top 20%, it may be 770 on one 300-850 scale and 800 on another.

[daveatca]

Have used CK for a number years.
Good for monitoring trends and aberations.
Never see ads on it as I use AdBlock.
Would recommend.

[MichaelRpdx]

I use both CK and Credit Sesame. Prefer Credit Sesame. Other's have commented they like CK better. So try both to find out for yourself.

CS updates the credit score once a month. In my experience it closely tracks the scores from the credit agencies. My bank just started offering Transunion credit score checking. The web site includes the ability to "what if" and see how different actions would affect the score.

CS and the Transunion score currently match.

[takeshi]

Is it a good idea to sign up for this free service? I'm usually afraid to put personal info out there.
yet-I'm curious to see what is going on with my scores

Your call to make. CK does offer free access to your TU and EQ reports with weekly updates. I find it useful but only for these reasons.

As for the scores, as stated above CK provides Vantage Score 3.0 If you have a creditor that uses TU or EQ VS 3.0 then CK's scores are relevant. If you don't then they are not. The specific scoring model has an impact on the number generated and you can't just assume that any two different scoring models will produce the same result even though there is a chance that the could be coincidentally close or even the same. You should expect different algorithms to produce different results.

If you want to know what score a creditor will pull for you then you need to know the CRA and model used. Even with that info you can't get every score out there as some are not offered to consumers.

I use Credit karma and their fake FICO scores are pretty close to the real score (I know this b/c I compared the scores to our real scores when we shopped for mortgage).

You can't determine it that way. A sufficient data sample is required for any sort of useful analysis. They may have been close for you but that doesn't mean that they're close in all cases. Additionally, there's no "real score". While many creditors use FICO there are a number of different FICO models used by creditors. Your mortgage lender would probably use a mortgage oriented score while an auto lender might use an auto oriented score. Many credit card decisions are based on the 8 model but there are creditors that use the 8 Bankcard model and I know of one that uses the NextGen model. the specific model used will have an impact on the number generated. Not all of FICO's models even use the same scoring range.

Credit Karma gives a great indication. There are some that will comment here that it is bogus.

It's not bogus. It, however, is not a FICO nor any other scoring model other than VantageScore 3.0. VS doesn't even market their scoring model as intended for estimating FICO's but a "more predictive/consistent/stable" (their marketspeak -- not mine) model.

[555]

Wife and I just signed up for this. It is interesting to see all this information (though some credit cards are also giving scores/info these days) and I understand the scores should be taken with a grain of salt. The list of open and closed accounts is correct.

One surprising thing was that my wife got a TransUnion score but not an Equifax score and it says

`Why don't I have a score from Equifax?
If the information in your credit report is too limited to produce a score, you have what's known as a "thin file." '

Both TransUnion and Equifax have essentially the same history except there are 3 closed cards where TransUnion gave a "Payment History" while Equifax said "No payment history has been reported by this creditor." Each of these 3 cards appears to be "store card" from 5-10 years ago, where in each case my wife was probably talked into applying for the card at the register to get a discount, and we promptly paid it off and never used it again, and it got cancelled a couple of years later.

(This is according to CreditKarma. I'll check the actual reports at annualcreditreport.com later this year after the dust settles on some recently opened cards.)

So, should we be concerned about this? Does it affect anything? Should we bother doing anything, and if so, what?