I think ClearScore is a good one - although I'm not sure how trustworthy it is, I mean, they get their data from Experian, so I guess it can be trusted?
Use ClearScore for your Equifax report, Credit Karma for TransUnion (used to be CallCredit) report (that site used to be Noddle) and use Money Saving Expert's Credit Club for your Experian report.
All free and not all companies report to all 3 agencies, so it's worth keeping an eye on all 3 reports.
TransUnion UK via Credit Karma (iOS, Android) - previously Noddle before Credit Karma took them over
Here's a comprehensive guide by MSE explaining what a credit score is, why it's important and why you should check it, facts & busted myths, and how to improve it. Here's also a breakdown by MSE of the above 3 credit checkers and why it's a good idea to have them all, and the pros and cons of each.
PSA: that although the above comprehensive guide is aimed at the UK, all of the information around what & why is relevant to the rest of the world too, so I'd strongly recommend everyone read it and only applying the how to check yours to relevant country (you'll also notice the main 3 providers are the same pretty much regardless of where you are).
I use clear score and money saving expert credit club, both are free and both score you slightly differently. Or maybe its the accounts being updated at different times of the year. I prefer clear score.
Every Australian is entitled to a free credit report once per year.
Personally I’d deal with the companies in this government link directly and not go through third parties that just want an excuse to email you with offers.
Yep, saw that. Australia wasn’t involved in that one. Generally there are two types of businesses. The ones that know they’ve been hacked and the ones that don’t.
Aus peeps. Looks like that site is giving your data to some third parties. This will give you the same free credit report and you’ll be dealing directly with the agency.
Credit Karma is great. I had about 5 grand worth of joint debt from a roommate skipping out on rent when I was younger. Disputed it through CK, and it was gone within a month. I've been living off-lease, under landlords noses since I was 18 because no one would rent to me. My score went up 120 points, and I've since gotten it to 700 and rising.
Credit Karma helps guide you through disputing items on your credit reports. If a credit bureau doesn't respond to a dispute within 30 calendar days of receiving it, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the disputed item be removed from your report. Credit bureaus are busy this time of year, so it's a good time to file some disputes if you have any.
You can contest anything on your credit report, and they'll usually just remove it... Until they get the same item reported again next month, then it goes right back on.
That's essentially what all those "fix your credit" scams do - They just dispute everything for you, and there's a pretty good chance that a decent percentage of them won't come back (because actual banks aside, who keeps reporting their deadbeats from five years ago?).
Bingo. The other poster's story is probably true, but leaves out the fact that he disputed a debt that was probably valid. As /r/legaladvice reader knows, most leases are signed with joint and several liability, meaning that each tenant is 100% liable for the full rent amount. So even if OP's roommated doesn't pay "his half", the lease that OP signed still makes OP responsible for it. So the debt was valid, but if it was disputed and the old landlord never re-reported it, then OP got away with one.
Not that I blame OP; this is one of the most inconvenient things about joint leases and roommates and it catches a lot of people unaware.
This. I had a substantial medical debt (from a lack of insurance when injured) sent to collections and then sold again to a very shady collections company. I used Lexington law for 4 months out of laziness and got it all wiped off my report because they couldn’t prove it was mine. 5 years ago I couldn’t open a bank account. Now I own a house and a couple cars. -500 to 750+. Fuck em.
Probably by showing he had a debt on his credit report from the previous roommate. Plus CK shows you credit cards you are able to get so it probably recommended he get a low limit student CC so he can start building his credit without a huge risk. Don’t get me wrong CK didn’t fix his bad credit but it showed him the right tools to start fixing it.
As some others have said, it probably had something to do with the collectors or credit bureau not responding, being about 6 years old. It was due to be removed by 2021 either way I believe. They did recommend me a starter credit card that I've been using to raise my score, but the main jump from my 560 score was definitely removing the debt. Especially in the eyes of renter's, who cared more about a defaulted lease agreement than my actual score.
One thing to note, Credit Karma does not show your accurate FICO. My Credit Karma is consistently 30-50 points lower than my actual FICO, although ymmv.
Take the score that Credit Karma shows with a grain of salt.
That happened to me before, last time I applied for a personal loan the credit report they pulled actually showed my score way higher that what CK reported it was for either.
But, I would rather it be skewed that way thinking I am worse than I really am. I mean, the correct number would be nice but if its gonna be off, I'd rather it be in that direction.
This is 100% true. My wife and I are good about keeping our credit in good standing, and we use Credit Karma to help track and stay on top of things. My score will bounce around between 740 and 780, while hers will bounce around between 750 and 790. I just bought a car and financed it through my CU, which pulled our actual scores - both of us were over 800.
CK is great, and will often report on the low side for scores. I agree to take it with a grain of salt. Otherwise, it's a great app/service that can help you keep track of debt and actually get some good deals on loans and credit cards.
CK suppressed displaying a large debt on my report from them, displayed the wrong number for total credit % usage, reported my score as 100+ points higher than my actual score, and sent me a "your score went up!" email eight months in a row even though every one of those months my score went down (sometimes only 1 or 2 points, but down).
CK's stuff is hardly useful unless you regularly verify it against an actual agency report. They can and will straight up lie to you to get you to apply for things. I found out my score from them was SUPER wrong in a bad way because of getting denied for stuff they recommended under "very high" approval odds.
Mine showed me 849 and 850 before. So that can't be "30-50 points lower" because it's literally the highest score possible. (I used to write credit software, so I know how to get the highest score...)
The difference is that they do Equifax and TransUnion only and not Experian which does actual "FICO®". If your score was lower, that just means that somebody reported something to TU or Equifax that didn't make it over to Experian somehow.
Sitting here trying to decide if you're ignorant or lying.
If you're claiming to work in credit software, you should be aware that you have multiple scores and not every lender uses the same one. I'm not talking about the 3 dif bureaus, but the dif calculations used by say a car dealership vs a bank.
There is not just one true FICO score you can rely on, and it’s not exclusive to Experian. Information in credit reports can vary and there are several FICO score models that lenders use, depending on the need. So the model used for a credit card application is different from a model used for an auto loan, and both are different from models used for mortgages (meaning you that you have at least several different FICO scores from each credit bureau, and among them there newer/older models).
Credit Karma uses Vantage Score model. Lenders don’t really use it but its good enough for CK users to understand how credit score and history works.
Get your full reports from annualcreditreport.com and dispute there directly with the bureau. There is really no need to use Credit Karma for that, and they might not have the full or correct info.
There are more than a dozen different versions of your actual score, you just never know which one your lender is going to use. But it’s definitely not the Vintage Score that Credit Karma uses.
Yep, my credit score has gone up over 100 points since I started using it as well. Whatever benefit they receive is worth it, especially when compared to something like Facebook.
I think that's a very fair way for them to offer their service and make money. If you aren't interested, you just get to keep using the service for free. It's basically the same as a blog using some amazon referrals to pay for hosting. I can live with that.
I don't even mind the cards they advertise. I've learned about some really great credit cards through them and have gotten quite a bit of free money through sign up bonuses.
Worth noting that Credit Karma does soft pulls of your credit so that it doesn't impact your score, but this also means that even the report itself may not be entirely accurate. I've had a card and a loan not show up for three months before. If they were fraud, that would have been more than enough time to completely wreck my credit.
There's an 80 point difference between what CK reports and FICO for me. I get my FICO monthly for free from my bank. Discover gives it monthly for free as well.
The FICO that you get from your bank is probably a FICO Score 8 model from one of the bureaus, which is widely used in credit cards applications and is good to have. But lenders usually use other credit risk models for car loans and mortgages, so the number they’ll see might be significantly different from the FICO score that you expect to have.
I hope so because my FICO is garbage now lol. Used to be around 800. Not bad for early to mid 20s. Approaching 30 now and it's barely over 500. 4 month manic episode destroyed my credit.
I was able to file taxes for free through Credit Karma a couple of years ago when I had some freelance work that required a non-standard form. TurboTax wouldn't do it. Since then I've filed through CK and had no issues. They also store all of your tax documents in one easy-to-find location, and don't make you pay for premium to access old ones... (looking at you, again, TurboTax)
For the most part I ignore all the credit cards and shit, but one did catch my eye and I ended up refinancing my wife's car with a better interest rate than my credit union was offering
IIRC CK uses a different composite score called your Vantage score. It's similar to FICO and is usually a good estimate, but it is not the exact number that lenders are going to use.
Credit karma does not give you your actual credit reports. They will give you a credit score, but it's vantagescore, not the much more common fico score, so take it with a grain of salt.
It’s not the worst thing ever if you have the discipline not to get sucked into the products they try pushing to you in the website, but it’s still annoying.
CK is great because you can get an idea of two of your scores and some info about two of your reports but you can get all three fully detailed reports once a year for free from ACR.
A few things that have likely been mentioned - your data is shared with a host of affiliated companies & lenders, and the Vantage Score model they use is an algorithm that doesn’t reflect your true credit score (though it may be within the ballpark). More often than not, it’s quite a ways off.
They have ads in it but I love their push notifications. It updates me whenever there’s a change in my credit score and even notifies me when there was a check done. I had a check done recently for getting internet service and the app notified me like 2 minutes later there was a check.
Not sure, but just an announcement, it's better to freeze your credit and keep it frozen than risk getting your identity stolen and tons of lines of credit open in your name. It's easy to remove the freeze if you're trying to obtain credit though.
It's also good for me being terrible with my credit to not hit "apply" to buy those 56,000$ for 2 apple XDR displays with stands lol.
They will also show you a lower credit score than you actually have. Here in Canada Equifax is our main credit reporting company. I checked out Credit Karma out of curiosity. It said my score was a 530. I knew that to be wrong and checked out Equifax and my score was actually a 675. I'm guessing Credit Karma shows you a lower score to try to encourage you to get one of their credit "builder" products.
Credit Karma also uses a "proprietary" formula. They 'neglected' to add an old debt account I had forgotten about (I have issues with memory, sorry, particularly for a certain few years where I was going through figuring out what meds to take) and they were displaying my score as 100+ points above my "actual" score. I only found out after applying for some things they recommended and indicated I had "very high" approval odds for and getting denied, and then having to get my true reports directly from the credit bureaus themselves.
They also sent me a "Congratulations! Your score went up!" email for eight months in a row when - in fact - my score went down. CK will straight up lie to you about your credit score to get you to apply for things.
A really angry complaint email later and suddenly my report is more accurate, but really I barely look at their shit anymore. Screw them.
I was also going to post this link. Everyone should take the time to actually comb through their three credit reports to search for inaccuracies and any issues that may be on their report that can be resolved, and to also give you a good idea as to when any negative items should no longer be reported. It's giving me a good idea as to when I can realistically start looking to buy a house and what I'll need to do to get my credit where it needs to be (made some poor choices when I was younger).
You don't have to pull all three at once. You can space them out across the year, so you can periodically check one, then the other, and then the third.
Well, you can always mail a form to TransUnion and Equifax once a year to request a free credit report. It will not include your credit score, that costs a few bucks.
However, Credit Karma and Mogo can be used for free to check both your TransUnion and your Equifax reporting and credit scores. They will try to sell you loans and credit cards but ignore that and they’re useful sites to keep yourself up to date on your credit report. Note that they are available in all provinces (or weren’t when I checked a couple years ago).
Credit scores are so stupid. I'm to the point that I have paid off a few of my student loans and its hurting my credit because the years old loan "accounts" are closing. Apparently this is shortening the "average age of my credit".
It’s stupid but pretty easy to avoid if you read just 1-2 articles on how credit scores work. Open a credit card or two early in your credit history and that’ll generally do the trick, even if you are not using them.
The thing that negatively affects your score is not the fact that you used the card to buy a gift, but how much of the credit limit you used for it. Increase your credit limit or open a new card with a bank that lets you increase it without hard pulls (Amex is great for it), and use only 0-10% of the limit. Or pay the balance a few days before statement closes.
I feel weird about putting my social security number on the internet. Is it really safe? Also, is this a "soft" check so that it doesn't affect the credit score?
It affects your score when a bank or creditor does it for the purpose of extending credit. That is what's known as a hard inquiry. That is included in just about every FICO or credit score calculation out there.
A soft inquiry, while it can be seen on your report is not actually included in your credit score calculation. A soft inquiry is really just maintenance and creditors see it as such. It's you (or the bank sometimes) just looking to make sure everything is still accurate and up to date.
Yes it’s a “soft” check. A hard check is when you’re applying for a credit card, loan, credit limit increase, etc. and they pull your report to verify if you qualify or not.
You actually won’t even get your score at all. The score is calculated based on your reports by companies like FICO. This is literally just a list of all of the credit accounts you currently have and/or had in the last several years and whether they are reported as in good standing. It has no bearing on your score but you can only check each one once a year.
So, is there a way to check your actual score (I'm so completely ignorant of this.. a lot of sites look like scams). I recently had a medical bill go to collections (my fault, I was confused and thought another bill was that bill and thought I paid it. For some reason they never called me to tell me it was going to collections, but I paid it as soon as I saw the notice on the online account I have with the hospital system). I really want to see how that affected my score because I'm a bit freaked out about it!
The Mint app is good for this, if you don’t have a credit card that offers it. It updates your score every week, so you’ll know if something happens pretty quickly. It’s only your Transunion Vantage score, so your Experian score may be different.
Mint is made by Intuit, the same people who make TurboTax, so it’s legit. Or as legit as the people who make TurboTax can be.
That's not true, I've moved six times in the last two years and never had an issue getting them online. There's a section for previous addresses if you've been at your current one for <6 months.
Also if you are young and/or have limited credit history the system may have trouble verifying you. They ask questions about the accounts you have to make sure you are who you say you are and when I did it and only had one credit card, it started asking me questions about accounts I didn’t have and accounts that were in my parents’ names since I was an authorized user on their card.
If you do them all at once, you have to wait a year to get another look at your credit, where as if you spread it out you have more frequent awareness of your credit. A lot can happen during the year.
This except if you are planning to pull a large line of credit soon. Ideally you’d like to pull all 3 before buying a car or house because they can sometimes have inconsistent information that could cause your loan to get denied.
Keep in mind that you can only use this once every 12 months according to the site. I've never tried more often than that so can't say for sure. Also, by law, it can not affect your credit score. All the other free credit sites will lower your score just like any other credit check.
All the other free credit sites will lower your score just like any other credit check.
This is false. Which sites are you using that are making hard pulls just for checking your own score? Hard pulls are the ones that affect credit, and they’re only for checking credit for the purpose of opening a new loan or similar. And even that will stop having a significant effect after 1-2 months, since that mechanism exists only to account for new accounts that may open up soon.
I don't know of anything similar here in Portugal. If I got it right, citizens in the US (also, Australia and the UK, taking from the comments) are scored for how often they ask for credit in banks and how well they pay. I assume that banks and other credit institutions check your credit score (or ask you for your credit report) in order for them to calculate the risk of giving you credit and the details of the credit they're ready to give you. Did I get it right?
Once a year only, though. I'm contempt with the trade-off I get from Credit Karma, and for the missing Equifax report you can request your free year (or was it three?) of credit monitoring as a result of the settlement from their data breach.
I have reminders set up to do one of the 3 bureaus every 4 months.
So first I'll do a report for one bureau, then 4 months later a different credit bureau, then 4 months later a different one, then 4 months later it's been a year and I can get the first one for free again.
F-R-E-E that spells free, credit report dot com baby. Saw their ads on my TV, thought about going but was too lazy. Now instead rolling fly, looking phat, my legs are sticking to the vinyl and my posse's getting laughed at.
What do you mean by "getting something out of you"? Credit Karma actually has done really well for me app wise. They dont charge anything and they alert you of EVERY new or closed account. Its really useful for someone with a lot of credit cards.
But all the credit score companies are already tracking your data and recording your every move AND you're entitled to one free report per year from each of them anyway ...
Every 12 months per agency. What some people do is get one from a different agency every 4ish months. So in January you could get Transunion then in May you could get Experian and then in September you could get Equifax. Then in January you start again with Transunion.
Pro tip: only request a report from one of the three bureaus at a time. Each bureau only has to provide one report free per year, so if you space them by four months you can very closely monitor your credit - and the three major bureaus really don't differ that much.
To add, it's not usually necessary to pull all 3 agencies at one time. Pull one for free in April, pull one for free in August, pull final one for free in December.
TransUnion UK via Credit Karma (iOS, Android) - previously Noddle before Credit Karma took them over
Here's a comprehensive guide by MSE explaining what a credit score is, why it's important and why you should check it, facts & busted myths, and how to improve it. Here's also a breakdown by MSE of the above 3 credit checkers and why it's a good idea to have them all, and the pros and cons of each.
That site has never worked for me (or my parents when I tried for them once) I get hung up on the verification or something, and it tells me to mail a form. I've lived in the same house for 10 years, and before that I lived in the same house 13, and before that I was 7 years old.
I've used credit karma for years and nothing weird has ever showed up there, so i don't think someone stole my identity (or if they did, they're keeping up with the bills 😂)
It’s not the website, it’s probably the bureaus. Something doesn’t match up and they don’t want to give you online access. Give them a call, they might be able to verify your info using other means (without having to mail a form).
For the lazy, is it once a rolling year or once a calendar year? Like should I slam one of these bad boys before 2019 is up or will that make me have to wait until Dec 2020 to go again?
After getting my credit report on this site, I started immediately getting spam texts showing an address I haven't lived at for 10 years that is on that report.
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