Do you trust Credit Karma?

[DaveInAZ]

"Trust" Credit Karma? I trust them for about 5 minutes a week to give me an accurate TU & EQ report, accurate for account details, not a credit score. When at least half their recommendations are for cards I already have you know their recommendations are meaningless marketing. And I like to play with them, they used to really push personal loans for my CC balances - which were all 0% monthly usage or 0% intro promos/BTs. So I checked my profile and saw they estimated my annual income at $65,000 so I took a "0" off and made it $6,500 annual income. Those personal loan recommendations magically disappeared.

[SouthJamaica]

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@GrayStar wrote:

I know they use VantageScore to determine which cards you are most likely to qualify for instead of using the real FICO score. Please share your opinions. 

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I think it's a very deceptive site, and no I don't trust it at all.

[AzCreditGuy]

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@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:

It's all marketing. They don't recommend anything based on any specifics in your report. Experian does the same thing with the FICO score they provide. Just marketing.

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I trust Experian more as they give me my Fico for free lol....Otherwise its all marketing....Credit Karma is only good for seeing balances and Inqs...Wallethub, Credit Seame, Nerd Wallet, Equifax, Experian are all hoping you will apply for cards since they will get some sort of comp. 

The better question is, how do you remove yourself from these sites and protect your data? Once my cards get paid off within the next months, I plan to ditch Credit Karma, Wallethub, Credit Seame, Nerd Wallet, Equifax, etc but they need to fully closed and my data no longer being harvested.......I am exposed too much by having all these credit checking accounts open

[fatcomic]

I use CK for the weekly updates to my TU and Equifax reports, and they do alert is something has changed.    The "credit score" is useless.  The credit card and loan offers I treat as commercials, which it pretty much what they are.  I've never applied to anything based on CK's guestimated approval odds.  

I use the free Experian score too for the same purpose, it allows me to see an Experian report every so often, their Score is a Fico 8 score at least.    I don't mess with that experian boost thing either.   

My Citi DC, Discover and Barclay gives me a monthly Fico from different reports as well which I trust more than CK's scores.   

[sxa001]

I know others have had different experience where VS3 can widly differ, for the most part now that I have a clean file I find my VS3 and Fico are very very close (811 FICO and 815 VS3 on EQ and TU).  Before I had a clean file, I didn't pay that much attention to the scores, I got a few cards and used them in smart ways but I wasn't seeking credit so I didn't care.

Do I trust CK?  I trust them for what they are.  They are funded by the credit card companies and have a lot of marketing, they provide me information about my reports for free and after we close on a house I may decide to cancel MyFICO and use CK for that report information since I will care less about subtle score changes.  

I have applied for "Recommended" cards in the past (Discover and AMEX Every Day I believe were both recommended on CK). These are easy cards to get so I would have probably gotten them by cold apping. 

CK provided a decent service to those who aren't really deep into the game and just want some basic information and maybe occasionally apply for cards that look interesting to them. 

[Winesnoblv]

Credit Karma is all about marketing.  When I first became aware of them, I used their recommendations.  The credit cards that had excellent approval odds were consistently declined, but the credit cards that had fair approval odds were approved.  More recently, cards that I have had for several years are shown with fair approval odds.  But then again, Credit Karma is free and you get what you pay for.  

[K-in-Boston]

As others have opined, I trust CK for supplying me weekly updates to my EQ and TU reports and that is about it.  

I often find VS3 insulting; I've had FICO 8s in the 830s on my squeaky clean aged files while simultaneously having VS3s in the 710s while at the same time others with serious credit issues and sub-600 FICO scores had higher VS3 scores than me.  I am very thankful that no lender I do business with uses them.

The marketing is also quite laughable at times. I usually have poor or fair odds for every card I have that is in their database. Additionally, I almost exclusively have poor or fair approval odds for secured cards and rebuilding/starter cards.  I almost always have excellent approval odds for anything Amex, who uses Experian and CK has no access to EX.  Sometimes I have good or excellent approval odds for Chase Sapphire Reserve while also having poor approval odds for Chase Sapphire Preferred.

[Anonymous]

KiB, what do you attribute your 710s VS3 scores to when your Fico scores using the same data yield 830s?  Just curious what you believe may be the cause of a ~120 point variance on what Fico certainly believes is an extremely low-risk file.

My Fico/VS3 scores have always more or less run neck and neck within 10-15 points or so from about 650 to 850 over the course of several years. 

[OmarGB9]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

As others have opined, I trust CK for supplying me weekly updates to my EQ and TU reports and that is about it.  

I often find VS3 insulting; I've had FICO 8s in the 830s on my squeaky clean aged files while simultaneously having VS3s in the 710s while at the same time others with serious credit issues and sub-600 FICO scores had higher VS3 scores than me.  I am very thankful that no lender I do business with uses them.

The marketing is also quite laughable at times. I usually have poor or fair odds for every card I have that is in their database. Additionally, I almost exclusively have poor or fair approval odds for secured cards and rebuilding/starter cards.  I almost always have excellent approval odds for anything Amex, who uses Experian and CK has no access to EX.  Sometimes I have good or excellent approval odds for Chase Sapphire Reserve while also having poor approval odds for Chase Sapphire Preferred.

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I mean, they've got a point. You'd most likely be declined for secured/rebuilder cards because your score is too high and your reports too clean for them to approve you. You're not the type of consumer they cater to.

Anyway, I realized I didn't answer the question. My answer is, much like others, I trust CK for the free weekly updated EQ and TU reports, and also I always get instant notifications if I apply for something and get a HP. I know not to trust their VS 3.0 scores that no lender uses.

[juggernaut9]

Much like everyone has already stated, I don't trust Credit Karma. I am in the process of buying a home that I will close on early next year and want to get my mortgage scores up. I use Credit Karma for the "home buying power" feature. I don't trust the actual dollar amount, but I can see in the changes to my buying power (which updates each day I log in) if my mortgage score increased, decreased or stayed the same. I am not sure if this is based off of TU or EQ data and an actual score is not provided. However, this helps to set my expectations when I view the mortgage scores on my monthly 3B Report. Other than that, I do not find Credit Karma useful.