Do you guys use Credit Karma?

[dfree86]

Hey y'all,

Just a quick question here. I've never actually gotten my credit score, but CreditKarma seems to be a well-reputed site. Have you guys signed up and used all of their services without incident? I'm always worried about putting my information in more places.

Do you use the CK service? And do you like it?

Thanks!

[Fuyu]

I signed up for CreditKarma about a year ago and check once a month to see if any new credit cards were added to my account just in case.

[Timmmy]

My wife and I have been members for a while.  I check it once a month when doing my budgeting and other monthly financial stuff.  No problems so far. 

It's not perfect but it should give you an idea of any suspicious activity going on.

[Philociraptor]

I use it.  Good to see when my score returns to normal after each credit card application.

[ketchup]

I check it every so often.  It's a nice little check of credit activity and score.

[gillstone]

We live in a state that allows you to freeze your credit record at will and thaw it within 24 hours notice.  So we just put a freeze on our record until we do something that would require it being available again. 

[Another Reader]

Credit Karma uses Trans Union. Recently they started offering free credit reports.  They must be getting a ton of income from the credit card and mortgage referrals to afford that, even with the deal they probably struck with Trans Union.  Credit Sesame uses Experian. It's useful to check two scores and subscribe to both alerts, so any fraudulent activity I miss will get picked up by one of the two credit bureaus. Credit Sesame is trying to move everyone to a subscription model.  They make it difficult to wade through the subscription advertising to get to what you need.

I do not link my accounts.  One more way to get hacked, don't want that.  I'm also concerned about the potential mingling of income and spending information with credit information.  These folks could make a mint by creating an all inclusive consumer profile and selling it.  There are enough Big Data collectors out there already, why make it easy for them?

[Beric01]

I do, but really only to compare it with my free FICO credit score I get from Discover once a month. Once my CK score dipped 50 points for a solid month, before returning to normal, yet nothing had changed in my utilization or anything. IMO CK is less reliable, but still useful.

[eyePod]

These folks could make a mint by creating an all inclusive consumer profile and selling it.

Hmm, that sounds like a great idea for a website! It'll collect all of your banking/credit card transactions and create a great profile of you. We'll even have targeted advertising based on your spending. Oh, and we can call it Mint.Com.....

hehe

[Jack]

Credit Karma uses Trans Union. Recently they started offering free credit reports.  They must be getting a ton of income from the credit card and mortgage referrals to afford that

[snip]

These folks could make a mint by creating an all inclusive consumer profile and selling it.  There are enough Big Data collectors out there already, why make it easy for them?

2 + 2  = ?

[Cheddar Stacker]

Nope. I really don't care about my credit report. I rarely need a loan, and when I do I get a credit report then. Although, it's never been lower than 780 to my knowledge.

What's the worst that could happen? Someone opens an account in your name, charges a bunch of stuff, then you can't get a loan? Seems easily fixable to me.

No disrespect intended. YMMV.

[solon]

I've used Credit Karma for several years. It's a great way to keep tabs on my score/report. I only use it to check my score/report, though. I haven't used any of their other products. (Don't even know what their other products are...)

[red7]

I second CK being a bit unreliable. I have used it for a couple of years now, and my score according to CK has barely moved in that time, despite big positive changes to my credit report (including the removal of several erroneous derogatory marks). My FICO score as reported by my Discover card is over 50 points higher.

It can be useful to see trends over periods of time, and maybe as a ballpark figure, but I'd never count on it to be particularly accurate as a score.

[Lis]

I've had it for about a year. As someone just starting out it's cool to see my score get better. It also alerts you when a new account is opened in your name, which is helpful. I use it as a tool to see that I'm on the right path. I haven't linked up my accounts either - Mint seems better for that.

[Westoftown]

I use it.  Its not perfect but its free.  I don't really care much about my credit score, but I like to check it because I "churn" credit cards for the offers.   This gives a slight dent to your credit score, but I have plenty of credit and a house, so I don't really care.  I love getting $100-$300 free money and its worth the time for me.

[chucklesmcgee]

I do use Credit Karma. The score itself isn't perfectly aligned with FICO, but it's close enough. Seeing the change in my account age, utilization, inquiries etc is the valuable part. And also useful to check if there's fraud.

[tarheeldan]

I use Credit Karma also. As mentioned above, the scores are not the same as your FICO but it's nice to have an indication.

Also, as mentioned above there are other bureaus (Experian, Equifax).

You can get all of them for free annually (no score) in accordance with the FACT act:
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action
one idea is to pull from one bureau in a rotation every 4 months.

[taekvideo]

I tried it once...
My 3 real credit scores were all really close, within 10 points of each other.
The credit karma score was 100 points lower.
Suffice it to say, quite useless.

[tarheeldan]

FICO is the score everyone is talking about when they say credit score (whether they know it or not).

CreditKarma is hooked up with TransUnion so there should not have been a differential there.

Information can differ between the 3 bureaus so it can be a good idea to check each periodically for inaccuracies.