Credit Karma vs Credit Sesame

[ElMayimbe]

Is it just me or is Credit Sesame scoring system pretty close to FICO?. CK is usually for me between 30 - 40 point difference, I do like CK for daily credit monitoring though. Are there any other free services out there, perhaps better or similiar? 

[bettercreditguy1]

For me CK is lower than Fico. Also, CK tends to report fast when cc balances increase and updates very slowly when cc are paid off, (sometimes 2-3 weeks) after payment shows up.

[jamesdwi]

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@ElMayimbe wrote:

Is it just me or is Credit Sesame scoring system pretty close to FICO?. CK is usually for me between 30 - 40 point difference, I do like CK for daily credit monitoring though. Are there any other free services out there, perhaps better or similiar? 

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the scores are useless, this week they may be close, next week they may be 50 pts off, the best way to use these services is for tracking the content on your reports, I have seen CK fluxuate 40 pts when my TU hasn't budged niether has my EQ report. They show when cards report, when new cards arrive occausionally they may pop up a deal that seems interesting, but then you do a further search of deal sites and see if its the best offer the credit card offers. 

[Anonymous]

I would say that both ck and cs tend to do a better job approximating clean reports relative to ones with negatives. Both have never really been off for me by more than 15-20 pts in either direction. CS tends to be a little higher than my ex fico and CK tends to be lower, although I don't have a recent tu fico for comparison. 

[09Lexie]

CK has been lower than my FICO score by roughly 20-25 pts. CS usually about 15-20 PST lower. As the previous poster stated, CK reports changes quickly and thus my score may fluctuate more based on the daily reporting. 

[Anonymous]

CS is lower than myfico by over 50 pts and CK is only 25 pts lower than myfico for me. Proves the numbers are worthless.

[beb86]

Yeah CS vs CK is a pretty worthless comparison. Mine have varied soo much with those two.

[SwampSystems]

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@ElMayimbe wrote:

Is it just me or is Credit Sesame scoring system pretty close to FICO?. CK is usually for me between 30 - 40 point difference, I do like CK for daily credit monitoring though. Are there any other free services out there, perhaps better or similiar? 

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CreditKarma uses TransUnion TransRisk which weighs things differently than FICO. For instance, CreditKarma calculates your average age over open accounts only, while FICO looks at all reported tradelines -- open or closed -- to make the calculation.

CreditSesame uses the Experian National Equivalency Score, which is designed to weigh risk as closely to the same way FICO does as possible. Altough this score normally ranges from 0 to 1000, CreditSesame uses Experian's optional scoring method and actually ranges from 360 to 840, in an attempt to closely match your actual FICO score.

Your results may vary, of course, but between the better score model and CreditKarma's habit of sometimes hiding hard pulls, I usually find that CreditSesame gives me a score much closer to my real FICO than CreditKarma does. But regardless of the actual score, both sites are a useful and free way to stay up-to-date on your TransUnion and Experian reports.

[starry1]

CK is about 25 pts higher than my fico at the moment.

[-HighScoringGame-]

I've found both CS and CK scores closer to the scores pulled by lenders. I discovered this while shopping for auto financing a few months ago. Their scores were much closer than what I got from MyFico - by 50 points! I called MyFico's customer service to ask what accounts for this huge spread and they said something about the scoring models being different. I'm actually thinking about canceling my monitoring here. If I can get it free at CK and CS why pay?