Which score is more accurate

[Anonymous]

Hello!

I wanted to know which score is more accurate.

Credit Karma or Capital One Credit Tracker?

I am asking because its a big different

[vanillabean]

Neither.

[EW800]

You will likely get responses that explain this better, however I will throw this out there.

Credit Karma scores are completely accurate as far as Vantage 3.0 scores, as that is exactly what they are. The problem is that this non-FICO (known as FAKO) score has nothing to do with FICO scores and I believe used by very few lenders. So, accurate by their own standard or model, but not FICO.

Cap One Credit Tracker is completely worthless as far as I know. It is basically some type of educational score based on TU data.

As far as your difference between the two, I am in the same boat. My Vantage 3.0 scores are 801 and 810, whereas as my Capital One CT score is 700. My FICO 8 scores (below) are in the 730 range.

Hope this helps and welcome to MyFICO Forums!

[cashnocredit]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello!

I wanted to know which score is more accurate.

Credit Karma or Capital One Credit Tracker?

I am asking because its a big different

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Well, it all depends on what you mean by "accurate." People tend to use "accurate" but really mean either "which credit score is closest to whatever the lender I am thinking about applying to uses?" or "Which score best predicts whether I will pay my debts or not?"

If you mean the former, neither score you mentioned is particularly accurate. CreditKarma uses VantageSCore which is a validated credit score but only used by a small number of lenders. C1CT uses a Transunion educational score. It's a score that isn't used for making loans. There is no evidence as to which score more closely approximates the score a lender would probably use. A wild guess is that the C1CT score is closer since VantageScore 3.0 uses data that the other scores do not.

As for which score is more accurate in the second meaning (will someone pay their debts?), I suspect VantageScore 3.0 is more "accurate."  It was developed using the newer, predictive, data that has been reported to CRAs for the last 5 years or so. The newer FICO 9 score also uses this data and may be even more accurate but is rarely used by lenders and isn't available for consumers.

So which of these did you mean by "accurate?"

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, both should be completely ignored. They are not even a good gauge to tell you if you are moving in the right direction. When I first decided to investigate my credit and do something about it I started with Credit Karma. Then I got my FICO scores. At the beginning of my credit rebuilding journey my Credit Karma scores were much higher than my FICO scores. Since I have been working on improving my credit scores, I have watched my Credit Karma scores fall while my FICO scores rose. So, if I was only using Credit Karma to gauge what I was doing pertaining to credit it would mislead me because the actions I have done that increased FICO have lowered Credit Karma. I also have the Credit Tracker and it always seems to be way off in it's own world that is also completely different from FICO scores and credit patterns.

FICOs are the only scores that matter, so don't get misled trying to figure out what raises your Credit Karma or Credit Tracker scores, the actions to improve them are not the same actions that improve FICO.

I will say that Credit Karma is useful to study what is on your reports, but do not pay any attention to the scores.

[Revelate]

Re: VantageScore: anecdotally based on their letters sent to people, both Chase and Capital One have faith in VS.  Not certain it is irrelevant given those are two of the dominant credit card issuers in the US market today as a result.

I absolutely track it, but I would also absolutely agree it's not as beneficial as tracking a FICO score.  No reason one can't do both, especially since CK is free.