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Earlier we discussed how I first found out about Credit Karma and how, as a seasoned financial professional, I was inclined to think that Credit Karma is a scam offer for free credit scores. I decided to do a review after being asked about it repeatedly.
Update: Read here about an opt-in service Credit Karma review credit monitoring as a free additional service.
There are multiple reasons for thinking this service isn’t legitimate, but the main one is that credit scores are not free.
Credit scores are not free for you, they are not free for banks, they are not free for car dealers, they are not free for anyone. Credit scores are the “why didn’t I think of that” invention of the century where personal lending is concerned.
A company called Fair Isaacs takes information from the credit reports at any of the three major credit bureaus and then uses a proprietary algorithm to reduce dozens of pages or more into one single number called a credit score. It does not do this for free. Every time someone pulls your credit score, they pay. They may pay a lot or they may pay a little depending upon their agreement with Fair Issac, but they do pay. You can’t give something that costs you money for free unless you have another way to make more money than you are paying out.
Credit Karma Review of Free Credit Score
'via Blog this'nce most free credit score scams are actually free trial offers that lead to an automatic recurring charge on your credit card, I figured that Credit Karma would want a credit card number before giving me my credit score. I know how to beat automatic charges on my credit cards, so I thought I would go through the process anyway and find out for sure whether or not Credit Karma was a scam.
The surprising thing was that they never asked me to enter a credit card number!
As you may recall, I had generated a limited use credit card number to enter, but I didn’t need it. Credit Karma asked for a lot of personal information, but never asked me to enter a credit card number nor any bank account information. In other words, they have no way to charge me for my credit score. It’s tough to scam someone when you don’t get any money from them.
That begs the question, is the credit score from Credit-Karma a real credit score?
Another credit score offering out there are calculators that “estimate” your credit score for you. The catch is that they estimate your credit score based upon the information that you provide. Chances are that there is no way you are going to enter all of the information that exists in your credit report, so it is not a very accurate estimate, no matter how good the credit score calculator program itself is.
That didn’t happen with CreditKarma.com either. Instead of asking me for my financial account information, they asked me for the same type of personal information anyone would need to pull a credit report and get a credit score on me. This does include your social security number and there is no way around that, so at a certain level, you have to trust that the Credit Karma website is legit. So far, I haven’t heard of any rumblings that this is all a very elaborate identity theft scam, although that is no guarantee of anything.
Credit Karma Complaints
The number one CreditKarma complaint is that the credit score is not a real FICO score. However, it is based upon your actual credit report data.
As it turns out, I was buying my car off of its expiring lease when I discovered Credit Karma, so I was able to compare the score CreditKarma.com said I had with the one my auto broker pulled in order to do my car loan paper work. The scores were close enough to be considered identical. (Scores actually very depending upon which credit bureau is used and even from day to day depending upon new information being reporting and aging of old information, but in this case they were within 4 points of each other.)
Now what would make Credit Karma the must have personal finance service for financially savvy people is that it does not just offer you your credit score for free once, but says that you can come back and update it as often as you like. I don’t know if there is a limit on how many times you can update, but I updated my free credit score from Credit Karma every month since May with no complaints.
In other words, I have gotten six free credit scores from CreditKarma.com without paying a cent, without buying anything, and without clicking on any advertisements. There are advertisements on the page, but unless they are the kind that pay just for showing up, they have earned nothing from me other than thanks and this review.
I recently setup an account for my wife (spouses can have very different credit scores even if “everything” is held jointly) and have started getting her free credit score as well.
I can’t say that I expect Credit Karma to be in business long. I doubt that it can earn enough money on what it is doing to make a profit. It might even get shut down by Fair Issac somehow since they don’t want people thinking of its flagship product as “free”. If Credit Karma does succeed, then it won’t be long before copycats are all over the Internet. But, no matter how it turns out down the road, for now, Credit Karma is a great deal for people managing their money.
Related posts:
42 Comments on Credit Karma Review – Good Deal?
- i signed up on credit Karma and they said my file was too thin
grand wazoo says:
27 days later i got a letter from a collection svc about a 19 yr credit card debt
so they had to have sold my info
- I have been using creditkarma since 2010 and update every month and have never had a problem
Chuck R says:
- [...] a review of Credit Kama here on FinanceGourmet, a reader asked if I would look into another service he had found called [...]
- Credit Karma only gives you your TransUnion Score????
Boss says:
Service Providers:
We use other third parties to provide credit report and score data on our site. When you request a credit report and score on our site, we will share your personally identifiable information and sensitive information with the third party to verify your identity and provide that service.
Available
2.Credit Karma Inc
Available
Wilmington, DE
3.Credit Karma, Inc
Available
San francisco, CAKenneth Lin
(REGISTERED AGENT)
22.
Multilytics Marketing, Inc
Multilytics Marketing, Inc
24/7 Wall St., 2012-01-19
Los Angeles, CA
Pine Brook, NJ
Montville, NJ
Somerville, MA
Philip Lin (Age 30)
Jui S Lin
Possible Roommates / Associates:
Akira Donuma (Age 43)
Available
San francisco, CAKenneth Lin
(PRESIDENT)
Kenneth Lin
(REGISTERED AGENT)
- Credit Karma, Inc
2.Multilytics Marketing IncAvailable
Wilmington, DE
3.Multilytics Marketing Inc
Available
Available
2.Io Integration Inc
Cupertino, CAMichael Holt
(CONTACT)
- Julia Hsiao Insurance And Financial Services
3.Io Integration IncAvailable
4.Io Integration Inc
Available
5.Io Integration
Available
6.Io Integration, Inc
Available
San francisco, CAMike Holt
(PRESIDENT)
- Veon, Inc
7.Io Integration, IncCupertino, CA
San francisco, CA
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pub.....cre34.shtm
They send you to this site;
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp
So, you don’t need to go through these other agencies, you can get three reports legally free. And I think if you request one from each one separately, you can check out your credit 3 times a year.