Balance Financial Fitness?

[llecs]

Many, many CUs have partnered with a service called Balance. They provide credit counselling and are formed via CCCS. A number of CU websites claim that Balance will provide for you your credit report and FICO score. I called Balance and they said they only provide reports and complimentary review, among other services. Has anyone used them before and if so, did they ever offer a FICO?

[nomoore]

I work at a CU that offers Balance. I don't really work with it (I'm in IT) but I did go through the sales training that was mandatory for everyone. The paperwork I have doesn't mention whether they give you a score or not. It does say they will give you options for obtaining a credit report such as: A free report in case of a loan denial, a report from annualcreditreport.com, fee-based reports from the credit bureaus, and fee-based reports through Balance.

It looks like they provide counseling for a range of things like how to balance your checkbook, budgeting, savings plans, home purchase, debt management, financial life change (divorce, marriage, starting a family), handling a job loss or other financial crisis, credit reports and scoring, fraud and identity theft, etc.

All the counselors "are certified consumer credit counselors- completing not just a comprehensive in-house training program, but also a series of exams developed in conjunction with Purdue University."

*EDIT* It looks like a credit score is mentioned on their website so maybe if you have them pull the credit report (fee based) then you get a credit score too. I see no mention of FICO anywhere though so it is probably a FAKO IMO. I'm hoping others have had experience that they can chime in on.