topic Re: Credit Karma = LOL in General Credit Topics

Credit Karma = LOL

FrugalRican — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:28:50 GMT

Maybe it's just me, maybe it's Credit Karma, but I signed up this morning just for kicks and just wanted to see my report (Don't care for the FAKO).

It's reporting an "accurate" balance on one of my cards. But it's not reporting two of them. The balance is actual AFTER having two new cards, both from early March.

So it only shows my two revolving credit lines from MBNA and Chase, but AMEX and Discover are nowhere to be found.

So right now, I have no clue what my actual AAOA is, what my real utilization looks like, and a few other things as well... just because of that.

Is the lag time for a new account on this over 2 months? It definitely should have picked up new accounts by NOW.
Then again, it's free... what could I expect?

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

llecs — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:52:30 GMT

Seems like more and more are questioning missing TLs on CK. I never had any problem, but I also don't order a new report but once or twice per month. Did these new TLs ever show on TU? BTW, AAoA is calculated differently on CK.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

pizzadude — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:53:26 GMT

Do you know for certain that they have actually started reporting yet ? It can sometimes take up to two statement cycles for AMEX to report, not sure about Discover.

CK just pulls your report from the CRAs so I'm thinking that they haven't started reporting yet.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

FrugalRican — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:55:45 GMT

Yeah, noticed the AAOA was amiss. It had me as 4 years and 11 months without the two lines. I was at 6+ before with just the two lines, so I have no idea what they are calculating. I haven't checked the real TU since applying for the new cards.

Today was my first day with CK, and more than likely my last.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

crunching_numbers — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:22:57 GMT

Frug- give CK a chance. It is a great way to see what is going on with TU. Handy to see when inq's hit, or balances post. Sometimes stuff doesn't show on the screen but is calculated into their stuff somehow. Overall not the best, but a free update service for TU.

Frug- its free. can't beat free.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

FrugalRican — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:28:51 GMT

If it can begin to report my two newer accounts, at least, I would lol

But right now it's painting a very incomplete picture of what my credit should look like.

It's free, as you say, so, I'll have that login handy.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

SwiftTone — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:29:21 GMT

I know Credit Karma's AAoA is on open accounts only.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

pipeguy — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:40:43 GMT

crunching_numbers wrote:
Frug- give CK a chance. It is a great way to see what is going on with TU. Handy to see when inq's hit, or balances post. Sometimes stuff doesn't show on the screen but is calculated into their stuff somehow. Overall not the best, but a free update service for TU.

Frug- its free. can't beat free.

I agree that CK is a useful "tool" especially since it's free. My TU on CK is the exact same score as my Walmart TU score - go figure. Rather than just the score, I find the CC account listings, with credit limits, balances and utility useful and fairly accurate. I take the sales pitches for auto refi's and CC offers with a grain of salt, but I still find CK to be a useful tracking tool.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

Revelate — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:44:13 GMT

FrugalRican wrote:
If it can begin to report my two newer accounts, at least, I would lol
But right now it's painting a very incomplete picture of what my credit should look like.

It's free, as you say, so, I'll have that login handy.

They'll get there eventually. While the scores and the offers are laughable almost all the time, it is a useful data mining tool, and absolutely the cheapest way to track changes to your TU report. Being the FrugalRican, I would've figured you'd enjoy the service ;).

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

FrugalRican — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:47:41 GMT

I knew about the score going in, so 750 could very well mean "You know Spanish" as far as I'm concerned.

I'm just glad I actually know better, because I could see how this could mislead a lot of people, and I mean the reports. Had I not known about the AAOA "misdirection", I'd be freaking out about the difference between 6+ years and 4 with 11 months or the fact that AMEX and Disc have been reporting for weeks on EQ but on this TU, it seems like it's not even close to tickling Elmo's funny bone.

I'll probably change the tune to my sad, sad song once everything gets on there the way it's supposed to be.

It was nice seeing my utilization at 1%... even if that's not what it is really at.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

FrugalRican — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:04:10 GMT

Oh I posted this in Smorgasboard?

FrugalRican = LOL

Thanks, Ilecs.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

SwiftTone — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:06:54 GMT

When I first joined this forum a month or so ago, I thought AAoA was only on open accounts because that's what CK gave me...

I couldn't get accurate advice on here because I would give always give my AAoA of open accounts. People kept on telling me my file is too thin and stuff. Now I know better.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

bettercreditguy1 — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:29:35 GMT

While it is not totally in sync with My Fico, the major movements (up and down) do register. So you do get the vibe of where you are heading. The AAOA figure appears only to reflect credit cards and not your mortage or car loans. Adfditionally, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to the timing of their updates. Some reporting is timely, other reporting lags up to ten days or so.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

FrugalRican — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:31:10 GMT

So is CK an accurate measure of TU credit reports? I don't mean the score, just the report. If CK is saying that I don't have an AMEX or a Discover, it's because TU is saying I don't have either?

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

kjm79 — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:34:16 GMT

FrugalRican wrote:
I knew about the score going in, so 750 could very well mean "You know Spanish" as far as I'm concerned.

You know how I can tell it's been a long week? This totally cracked me up. That, or I need to cut back on the coffee. lol

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

Revelate — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:34:11 GMT

FrugalRican wrote:
So is CK an accurate measure of TU credit reports? I don't mean the score, just the report. If CK is saying that I don't have an AMEX or a Discover, it's because TU is saying I don't have either?

Dunno, I'd probably pay the 20 bucks to pull a TU report, or from annualcreditreport in order to see, assuming those accounts are reporting on the other bureaus (EQ/EX). It's possible that TU is lagging in the report updates, certainly in Discover's case which is typically EQ first I suspect.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

pipeguy — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:37:49 GMT

FrugalRican wrote:
So is CK an accurate measure of TU credit reports? I don't mean the score, just the report. If CK is saying that I don't have an AMEX or a Discover, it's because TU is saying I don't have either?

I would say with my experience using CK for 6-7 months, yes with the understanding that "updates" can be a few days off.

Example: I closed a card around the first of April, the statement cut date for that card id the 15th, it's not shown as closed yet. Another card rec'd a CLI on the 7th of this month, the new CL showed up today on my CK report (statement was April 8th).

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

FrugalRican — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:37:05 GMT

I will check again tonight to see if anything has updated. I added a new card in the mix, over the weekend.

I was still disappointed. According to LOLKarma... or should I call it LOLUnion or TransLOLnion...

I have 4 accounts with 2 opened and 2 closed... but I have no idea what this second account "closed" is because I only have a closed phone account.

My free LOLUnion is up in June, so I'll wait til then to see the comprehensive and detailed report.

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

MamboItaliano — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:02:49 GMT

Oh a new and fun game for the whole family!

Here's my entry:

CreditKarharharma

Re: Credit Karma = LOL

LisaPA — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:35:24 GMT

FrugalRican wrote:
I will check again tonight to see if anything has updated. I added a new card in the mix, over the weekend.

I was still disappointed. According to LOLKarma... or should I call it LOLUnion or TransLOLnion...
I have 4 accounts with 2 opened and 2 closed... but I have no idea what this second account "closed" is because I only have a closed phone account.

My free LOLUnion is up in June, so I'll wait til then to see the comprehensive and detailed report.

I've been using Credit Karma for a while, but just got my BF to start using it about 6 weeks ago. A few accounts populated right away, but the others didn't show up until the next statement closing date. He also got a weird message saying he was delinquent on 2 accounts. We pulled his report, which showed no delinquencies. I assume it's just new account lag and they were somehow pulling due dates but not payments.

Personally, I have noticed it doesn't show my student loan payments for nearly a month. I don't much care, because I know I'm current, but you can expect CK to lag a bit on non-credit card debt. Credit accounts seem to pop in right away for me.