MyFICO vs. Credit Karma which would be better?

[Anonymous]

So I now have a clean report and just want to monitor my credit in case something crazy happens like fraud etc:. I have been uneasy for years about Credit Karma however everyone on this board seems to have great reviews of the site and its FREE. I am paying $29.99 per month here at MYFICO and I am basically gardening for the next year with my scores over 800 now. If Credit Karma really is a good site and legit like everyone here says then would it not make sense to cancel here save the money and just montior my credit off Credit Karma? Thanks for your imput...

[mitchblue]

Credit Karma can be good for somethings but it's a fako score, highly inaccurate. The scores can differ from myFico by 20, 40 even 100 points.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely cancel this site and stick with Credit Karma. It's Free and it's reports are accurate. It makes no sense to pay for this site while you are gardening. The only issues with Credit Karma is the scores are not used by lenders so they are not very reliable, and the recommendations they give are simply ads. Other than that, Credit Karma is perfect.
They have easy to read and navigate reports, and from my experience they will give you email alerts of changes (inquiries, new accounts etc.) hours and sometimes days faster than myFico.

[mitchblue]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Absolutely cancel this site and stick with Credit Karma. It's Free and it's reports are accurate. It makes no sense to pay for this site while you are gardening. The only issues with Credit Karma is the scores are not used by lenders so they are not very reliable, and the recommendations they give are simply ads. Other than that, Credit Karma is perfect.
They have easy to read and navigate reports, and from my experience they will give you email alerts of changes (inquiries, new accounts etc.) hours and sometimes days faster than myFico.

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It's called fako for a reason. Which is why no one uses them. If you want to use them fine, but if you want accurate scores please don't listen to YupYup. Though I tend to agree about not paying 29.99 a month for scores.

[Anonymous]

If he is gardening, does he really need to pay for his scores?

Credit Karma gives you everything you get from here with the exception of scores (which he does not need) and EX, which he can get from another free site.
Credit Karma has a better interface imo, making it easier to look at your reports and they report changes much faster.

Credit Karma's reports are accurate and easier to view. No need to pay for them, and as I said, the scores CK gives you are not reliable.

So to answer the OP's question without being a **bleep**: No you don't need to waste $30/mo on this site because Credit Karma is free. When you want to come out of the garden and start applying for stuff, then you might want to pay for the scores here.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:
If he is gardening, does he really need to pay for his scores?

Credit Karma gives you everything you get from here with the exception of scores (which he does not need) and EX, which he can get from another free site.
Credit Karma has a better interface imo, making it easier to look at your reports and they report changes much faster.

Credit Karma's reports are accurate and easier to view. No need to pay for them, and as I said, the scores CK gives you are not reliable.

So to answer the OP's question without being a **bleep**: No you don't need to waste $30/mo on this site because Credit Karma is free. When you want to come out of the garden and start applying for stuff, then you might want to pay for the scores here.

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Free is good for credit monitoring and CK does a reasonable job. Other Fico credit monitoring is available through Experian (Experian Credit Tracker) for less. It used to cost $19.95/month but appears to have increased to $21.95/mo. Use free monitoring and save $240/yr to $360/yr - good decision. 

VantageScore 3.0 is ok for score tracking. If you see a big shift, dig deeper and then get your Fico score if you have concerns. Alternatively, there are free monthly Fico 08 scores available through Discover card and AMEX.

[Gunnar419]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So I now have a clean report and just want to monitor my credit in case something crazy happens like fraud etc:. I have been uneasy for years about Credit Karma however everyone on this board seems to have great reviews of the site and its FREE. I am paying $29.99 per month here at MYFICO and I am basically gardening for the next year with my scores over 800 now. If Credit Karma really is a good site and legit like everyone here says then would it not make sense to cancel here save the money and just montior my credit off Credit Karma? Thanks for your imput...

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I'm also gardening with scores in the 800s. I can't say what you should do, but I canceled MyFico and for now monitor TU and EQ on Credit Karma only. I'm not using a free EX monitoring site, but I get an EX score from Amex, which would tell me if something went haywire on that CR. All three of my reports are frozen, too, so I don't have to worry about them.

The only place MyFico is superior is in giving real FICO scores on all bureaus and giving several types of FICO, which is a great feature. If you're gardening, though, that feature isn't needed.

If you're gardening, you might also want to freeze your reports for extra piece of mind.

[Anonymous]

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@Gunnar419 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

So I now have a clean report and just want to monitor my credit in case something crazy happens like fraud etc:. I have been uneasy for years about Credit Karma however everyone on this board seems to have great reviews of the site and its FREE. I am paying $29.99 per month here at MYFICO and I am basically gardening for the next year with my scores over 800 now. If Credit Karma really is a good site and legit like everyone here says then would it not make sense to cancel here save the money and just montior my credit off Credit Karma? Thanks for your imput...

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I'm also gardening with scores in the 800s. I can't say what you should do, but I canceled MyFico and for now monitor TU and EQ on Credit Karma only. I'm not using a free EX monitoring site, but I get an EX score from Amex, which would tell me if something went haywire on that CR. All three of my reports are frozen, too, so I don't have to worry about them.

The only place MyFico is superior is in giving real FICO scores on all bureaus and giving several types of FICO, which is a great feature. If you're gardening, though, that feature isn't needed.

If you're gardening, you might also want to freeze your reports for extra piece of mind.

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So I can get my TU and EQ scores from Credit Karma and I get my Experain through American Express now. Does looking at your credit scores on Credit Karma hurt your credit scores as a hard or soft pull? Thanks for all the imput, I am going to cancel this then .. Thanks

[Anonymous]

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@Gunnar419 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

So I now have a clean report and just want to monitor my credit in case something crazy happens like fraud etc:. I have been uneasy for years about Credit Karma however everyone on this board seems to have great reviews of the site and its FREE. I am paying $29.99 per month here at MYFICO and I am basically gardening for the next year with my scores over 800 now. If Credit Karma really is a good site and legit like everyone here says then would it not make sense to cancel here save the money and just montior my credit off Credit Karma? Thanks for your imput...

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I'm also gardening with scores in the 800s. I can't say what you should do, but I canceled MyFico and for now monitor TU and EQ on Credit Karma only. I'm not using a free EX monitoring site, but I get an EX score from Amex, which would tell me if something went haywire on that CR. All three of my reports are frozen, too, so I don't have to worry about them.

The only place MyFico is superior is in giving real FICO scores on all bureaus and giving several types of FICO, which is a great feature. If you're gardening, though, that feature isn't needed.

If you're gardening, you might also want to freeze your reports for extra piece of mind.

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I have a credit freeze on my reports now is there anything else I can do to help with that? Thank you

[Gunnar419]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Gunnar419 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

So I now have a clean report and just want to monitor my credit in case something crazy happens like fraud etc:. I have been uneasy for years about Credit Karma however everyone on this board seems to have great reviews of the site and its FREE. I am paying $29.99 per month here at MYFICO and I am basically gardening for the next year with my scores over 800 now. If Credit Karma really is a good site and legit like everyone here says then would it not make sense to cancel here save the money and just montior my credit off Credit Karma? Thanks for your imput...

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I'm also gardening with scores in the 800s. I can't say what you should do, but I canceled MyFico and for now monitor TU and EQ on Credit Karma only. I'm not using a free EX monitoring site, but I get an EX score from Amex, which would tell me if something went haywire on that CR. All three of my reports are frozen, too, so I don't have to worry about them.

The only place MyFico is superior is in giving real FICO scores on all bureaus and giving several types of FICO, which is a great feature. If you're gardening, though, that feature isn't needed.

If you're gardening, you might also want to freeze your reports for extra piece of mind.

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So I can get my TU and EQ scores from Credit Karma and I get my Experain through American Express now. Does looking at your credit scores on Credit Karma hurt your credit scores as a hard or soft pull? Thanks for all the imput, I am going to cancel this then .. Thanks

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Looking at your reports on CK does not hurt your credit at all. It's not an HP. HOWEVER, on CK it's the reports you want to see, not the scores.

CK scores are Vantage 3, which hs very little real world use. They are not FICOs. What CK will give you is a good look at your TU and EQ reports.

Amex will give you a real EX FICO, but no detailed look at your credit report. It sounds like you're doing everything right and the only thing you might want to add is a free service that monitors your EX report. IIRC, Credit Sesame or Credit.com do this, but again you should pay very little attention to their scores. It's their report summaries you want.