topic Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable? in General Credit Topics

is score on Credit Karma reliable?

GTT — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:46:18 GMT

I just got my SSN in Jan, 2012 and Credit Karma shows I have a score of 718.

Is that accurate enough?

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

Happychap — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:49:08 GMT

It uses the Transrisk score, but also shows your Advantage score. I subscribe to Transuinion and can tell you that CK vantage score is the same as my TU Vantage score. So, yes it is reliable. I just don't know about the Transrisk score since TU uses the Vantage score.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

LS2982 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:49:51 GMT

@GTT wrote:
I just got my SSN in Jan, 2012 and Credit Karma shows I have a score of 718.
Is that accurate enough?

CK is a TU "Transrisk" score which is called a FAKO score here. In other words useless. You need to pull your TU FICO from this site.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

pizzadude — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:50:01 GMT

@GTT wrote:
I just got my SSN in Jan, 2012 and Credit Karma shows I have a score of 718.
Is that accurate enough?

It can't be correlated to a FICO score, so nope. I would recommend getting at least one FICO score to know where you stand.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

GTT — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:51:33 GMT

@Happychap wrote:
It uses the Transrisk score, but also shows your Advantage score. I subscribe to Transuinion and can tell you that CK vantage score is the same as my TU Vantage score. So, yes it is reliable. I just don't know about the Transrisk score since TU uses the Vantage score.

Yes, Transrisk shows 718 and Advantage score shows 700.

I heard that it's only after 6 months that one could be possible to have a score...so I'm thinking whether it's really estimating some score for me.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

fused — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:54:32 GMT

@GTT wrote:
@Happychap wrote:
It uses the Transrisk score, but also shows your Advantage score. I subscribe to Transuinion and can tell you that CK vantage score is the same as my TU Vantage score. So, yes it is reliable. I just don't know about the Transrisk score since TU uses the Vantage score.
Yes, Transrisk shows 718 and Advantage score shows 700.
I heard that it's only after 6 months that one could be possible to have a score...so I'm thinking whether it's really estimating some score for me.

Lenders (credit card companies, banks, mortgage lenders and auto delearships) don't use those scores.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

LS2982 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:55:42 GMT

@fused wrote:
@GTT wrote:
@Happychap wrote:
It uses the Transrisk score, but also shows your Advantage score. I subscribe to Transuinion and can tell you that CK vantage score is the same as my TU Vantage score. So, yes it is reliable. I just don't know about the Transrisk score since TU uses the Vantage score.
Yes, Transrisk shows 718 and Advantage score shows 700.
I heard that it's only after 6 months that one could be possible to have a score...so I'm thinking whether it's really estimating some score for me.

Lenders (credit card companies, banks, mortgage lenders and auto delearships) don't use those scores.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

GTT — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:00:57 GMT

@fused wrote:
@GTT wrote:
@Happychap wrote:
It uses the Transrisk score, but also shows your Advantage score. I subscribe to Transuinion and can tell you that CK vantage score is the same as my TU Vantage score. So, yes it is reliable. I just don't know about the Transrisk score since TU uses the Vantage score.
Yes, Transrisk shows 718 and Advantage score shows 700.
I heard that it's only after 6 months that one could be possible to have a score...so I'm thinking whether it's really estimating some score for me.

Lenders (credit card companies, banks, mortgage lenders and auto delearships) don't use those scores.

OK, then it's useless for me so far....

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

SwiftTone — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:02:46 GMT

My Credit Karma scores are pretty darn close to my are pretty darn close to my FICO. Maybe a coincidence. Anyone know what the score range is for Credit Karma?

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

Happychap — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:03:19 GMT

Yeah most lenders still use FICO but if you don't wish to pay for your FICO you could just sign up for Quizzel or Credit.com to ge free scores along with your CK score. It wont give you your real FICO but it will give you a rough idea on your credit worthyness at least Quizzel pulls Experian where Credit.com and CK pull TU. Not sure if there is an identical service that uses EQ.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

CreditCrusader — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:03:22 GMT

@LS2982 wrote:
@GTT wrote:
I just got my SSN in Jan, 2012 and Credit Karma shows I have a score of 718.
Is that accurate enough?

CK is a TU "Transrisk" score which is called a FAKO score here. In other words useless. You need to pull your TU FICO from this site.

+1 to infinity...

CK has my credit score over 100 points lower than the Wal-Mart's FICO score. Why? Because they don't even list 70% of the credit card accounts on my actual TU report.

ONLY a true FICO score can tell you where you stand...and only credit reports pulled directly from the bureaus are guaranteed to be the most up-to-date possible. These FAKO outfits are unreliable at best.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

fused — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:04:57 GMT

@GTT wrote:
@fused wrote:
@GTT wrote:
@Happychap wrote:
It uses the Transrisk score, but also shows your Advantage score. I subscribe to Transuinion and can tell you that CK vantage score is the same as my TU Vantage score. So, yes it is reliable. I just don't know about the Transrisk score since TU uses the Vantage score.
Yes, Transrisk shows 718 and Advantage score shows 700.
I heard that it's only after 6 months that one could be possible to have a score...so I'm thinking whether it's really estimating some score for me.

Lenders (credit card companies, banks, mortgage lenders and auto delearships) don't use those scores.
OK, then it's useless for me so far....

Click on the Requirements for a FICO Score link in my sig line to see if you might have TU and EQ FICO scores. I NEVER pay any attention to credit scores that lenders don't pull.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

Walt_K — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:08:31 GMT

@SwiftTone wrote:
My Credit Karma scores are pretty darn close to my are pretty darn close to my FICO. Maybe a coincidence. Anyone know what the score range is for Credit Karma?

Yes, it is a coincidence. Across the population, there are bound to be several people with scores that are similar between two different scoring models. But there is no correlation between the two, and we shouldn't expect there to be. They use different ranges and they weigh information differently.

Which score range are you asking about, Transrisk or Vantage?

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

LS2982 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:48:46 GMT

@Walt_K wrote:
@SwiftTone wrote:
My Credit Karma scores are pretty darn close to my are pretty darn close to my FICO. Maybe a coincidence. Anyone know what the score range is for Credit Karma?

Yes, it is a coincidence. Across the population, there are bound to be several people with scores that are similar between two different scoring models. But there is no correlation between the two, and we shouldn't expect there to be. They use different ranges and they weigh information differently.

Which score range are you asking about, Transrisk or Vantage?

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

trumpet-205 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:49:20 GMT

I believe Chase do use Vantage score for credit card.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

LS2982 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:51:45 GMT

@trumpet-205 wrote:
I believe Chase do use Vantage score for credit card.

They pulled EX for me in MD.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

Eschaton — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:54:17 GMT

It'll give you a good estimate as to where you stand. For me, it matched up to my Experian on the dot. I was at 770 back in Janurary and it estimated me at 734. So that gives you an idea how far off it could be.

If you don't really want to pull your exact score, this is pretty reliable.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

Walt_K — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:10:57 GMT

@Eschaton wrote:
It'll give you a good estimate as to where you stand. For me, it matched up to my Experian on the dot. I was at 770 back in Janurary and it estimated me at 734. So that gives you an idea how far off it could be.

If you don't really want to pull your exact score, this is pretty reliable.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but it's not accurate to say that either Transrisk or Vantage will give you a good idea of where you stand. All you can say is that for you, at one point in time, the scores were close. My Transrisk for TU was 787 in September. I checked it in October and it fell to 712. The same day, my Vantage score rose from 809 to 834. My TU FICO has sat right around 728 that whole time.

Every time someone comes on here and says for me, they are close, it is merely a coincidence. In fact, because there is no correlation between the two scoring models, you are necessarily going to have people for whom the scores are close. It would be odd if there were no instances where the two lined up.

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

fused — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:19:20 GMT

I just now noticed this thread is in the CC forum. I'm going to move it to the General Credit Topics forum.

--fused, myfico moderator

Re: is score on Credit Karma reliable?

LS2982 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 23:28:04 GMT

@Walt_K wrote:
@Eschaton wrote:
It'll give you a good estimate as to where you stand. For me, it matched up to my Experian on the dot. I was at 770 back in Janurary and it estimated me at 734. So that gives you an idea how far off it could be.

If you don't really want to pull your exact score, this is pretty reliable.
Sorry to beat a dead horse, but it's not accurate to say that either Transrisk or Vantage will give you a good idea of where you stand. All you can say is that for you, at one point in time, the scores were close. My Transrisk for TU was 787 in September. I checked it in October and it fell to 712. The same day, my Vantage score rose from 809 to 834. My TU FICO has sat right around 728 that whole time.

Every time someone comes on here and says for me, they are close, it is merely a coincidence. In fact, because there is no correlation between the two scoring models, you are necessarily going to have people for whom the scores are close. It would be odd if there were no instances where the two lined up.

Good post!