How Trust Worthy is Credit Karma

[Medic981]

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@The-Credit-Disciple wrote:
Great Evening Fico Family😀
What do you think about Credit Karma? Are there scores Trust Worthy? I like how they show you your accounts, balances, collections if you have any, utilization among other things. But the Scores, im not to sure that they are Accurate, what do my Fico Family Think? Thanks in advance😎😁

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I think that the credit report information is accurate as what they get from the CRA. I am not very trusting of the credit advice they give since the reason the website exists is to get referral fees from CC and loan applications.

[Medic981]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Other than score, AAoA and credit card recommendations, they're trustworthy.

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The CKs AAoAs don't take into account your closed tradelines. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@AnonymousOther than score, AAoA and credit card recommendations, they're trustworthy.

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Don't forget their fluff chart on payment history percentages, which depicts a graphic suggestive that 99% of payments made on-time is just as good as 100% when anything other than 100% when it comes to FICO scoring is essentially bad/poor.

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Yes. Another danger is their "Total Accounts" section where they tell you 0-5 is "poor" and 21+ is "excellent" to encourage you to apply for more cards, many newbies take this to heart and go on app sprees, then come on here asking for help after tanking their scores for a bunch of useless toy limit cards along with wasted inquiries on rejections.

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Something to bear in mind is that CK only goes back two years for payment history. I had a 30 day late reporting on myFICO, but not CK and it was driving me bananas! 

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True, although on the other hand, CK actually shows you ALL the HPs on your reports (EQ/TU, anyway).... while MyFICO only displays the ones from the last 12 months! (Only the scorable ones.)

And neither display SPs at all, but a few of the CRA-direct services do, as does the ACR.

(Hmm... I just checked CK, and its currently showing exactly 3.5 years of payment history.)

[Anonymous]

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@iv wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Something to bear in mind is that CK only goes back two years for payment history. I had a 30 day late reporting on myFICO, but not CK and it was driving me bananas! 

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True, although on the other hand, CK actually shows you ALL the HPs on your reports (EQ/TU, anyway).... while MyFICO only displays the ones from the last 12 months! (Only the scorable ones.)

And neither display SPs at all, but a few of the CRA-direct services do, as does the ACR.

(Hmm... I just checked CK, and its currently showing exactly 3.5 years of payment history.)

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Hi iv.  I think where some people are getting the "two year" idea is that, if their lates were all > 25 months ago, CK will say they have 100% on time payments on the summary page, as if that part of it can't see or is ignoring the older lates.  At least that is what some folks have claimed.  I can't confirm myself since my lates all fell off my reports back in 2005, way before I knew anything about CK or indeed much about scoring in general.

[Thomas_Thumb]

I see four years of payment history by account on CK. This information along with dates opened and account balances is accurate. Click on each specific account to get payment history details. Examples of displayed history along with current utilization is pasted below.

Note: The two months shown as unknown. After a certain # months of non use the account went inactive and stopped reporting instead of reporting "ok". Some cards continue to report "ok" indefinitely until closed for inactivity (Kohls card)

Note: The n/a for utilization will show on accounts that are NPSL charge cards.

[Anonymous]

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@rbentleyFor many people the VS score can be 50 points higher than your true FICO score.  Do not be mislead by it.  

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It's also worth noting here that just as many people report their FICO scores being higher than their VS scores.  I've seen variances to the tune of 100 points in either direction.

[Anonymous]

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@rbentley wrote:

You can trust the information that CK provides to you, it is accurate as long as you understand what it truly is.  You can also trust the site not to misuse your personal information.  It is safe to give them the identifying information required to do a SP on your credit.  Their credit scores can NOT be relied on however.  As stated above, they are not FICO scores, but rather a different scoring method callled VantageScore, which virtually no creditors use.  They are commonly dismissively refered to as FAKO scores.  For many people the VS score can be 50 points higher than your true FICO score.  Do not be mislead by it. 

VS scores are also very sensitive to changes and can swing dramatically either up or down, while your FICO score does not move significantly.  Do not freak out about VS score changes.  They are good however at alerting you to changes on your account, such a new inquires, accounts and account status. 

CK's AAoA is also only based on your open accounts, because on a SP they do not have access to your closed accounts.  FICO will consider your closed accounts in your AAoA (up to 10 years from date of closing).  If you don't have closed accounts, their calculation of your AAoA will be accurate.  If you do have closed accounts your true AAoA as reflected on your CRB reports will be higher, maybe significantly higher.

Finally, you can NOT trust at all CK's credit recomendations.  They will always recomend you apply for more credit cards even though that might be the wrose thing you can do for your credit at the time (due to inquiries and impact on AAoA).  Keep in mind that they are a free service because they get a kick back when you apply for new cards or loans from their site.  

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+1 to all the above. As far as card recommendations go, CK is currently trying to push the Amex Premier Rewards Gold Card on me, which has been good for a hearty laugh to start my week; even if Amex weren't pretty certain to turn me down out of hand on any apps until late next year due to my BK (I've never had an account with them but Amex won't consider any apps until your BK filing is at least 5 years 1 month old, from my understanding), the $95 AF is a showstopper.  In any case, even if I could trust CK's recommendation on that card, I'm gardening and not in the market for any more cards until at least after New Year's.

My actual AAoA, as shown by Experian, is much higher (6 years as of today) than what CK is claiming (2 years, 8 months at this writing), because, as you say, FICO takes closed accounts into consideration while VS only counts open accounts. Furthermore, my EX and TU scores have stayed very steady for the last five months or so on FICO (though EQ has shown a bit more activity) while they, as well as EQ, have fluctuated significantly on VS. That being said, I expect a blip - upward, I hope - this month as a closed account from 2008 finally drops off my EX report (it's already gone from TU and EQ, which CK duly reported - they're not dependable for scores, payment history or CC recommendations, but they are very good for keeping track of overall credit history and credit events).

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@rbentley wrote:

You can trust the information that CK provides to you, it is accurate as long as you understand what it truly is.  You can also trust the site not to misuse your personal information.  It is safe to give them the identifying information required to do a SP on your credit.  

VS scores are also very sensitive to changes and can swing dramatically either up or down, while your FICO score does not move significantly.  Do not freak out about VS score changes.  They are good however at alerting you to changes on your account, such a new inquires, accounts and account status. 

CK's AAoA is also only based on your open accounts, because on a SP they do not have access to your closed accounts.  FICO will consider your closed accounts in your AAoA (up to 10 years from date of closing).  If you don't have closed accounts, their calculation of your AAoA will be accurate. 

Keep in mind that they are a free service because they get a kick back when you apply for new cards or loans from their site.  

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Actually CK does have information on closed accounts. I see this when I click on accounts => then show closed accounts => then a specific closed account. Other free sites such as Credit Sesame and Credit.com have info on closed accounts as well. The AAoA calculation by CK is specific to CK, the VantageScore they provide actually includes closed accounts in its scoring and comes from the CK pull.

[Anonymous]

Nobody knows why Karma's front end summary page ignores closed accounts in its age calculations (it also fails to count them in its utilization if the closed account has a positive balance), though as TT observes Karma's actual reports certainly include the closed accounts and so does the back-end Vantage 3.0 algorithm.

The front end summary page for other Vantage-based tools (like credit.com) does typically capture closed accounts.

I may have heard that the old Vantage 2.0 algorithm ignored closed accounts, and that's why Karma's summary page still ignores them.  It's hard to believe because Karma has made major overheauls to its front end since it began using Vantage 3.0 (which was years ago).  Hard to imagine why they haven't fixed it yet.