Which company do you use for credit monitoring?

[princessminor]

Hello all, I've been browsing  and I see Credit Karma mentioned a lot.  I'm wondering how people feel about this company and where would be a good place to go to find one's more accurate scores.  Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

This site provides the most accurate scores and they are true FICO scores which most potential lenders use. Credit Karma provides a Vantage 3.0 score which is used very little potential creditors.  While CK is free and can be helpful to monitor payment dates and showing such items as inquiries it is not an accurate reflection of ones credit scores and often provides completely erroneous information.

[MidnightVoice]

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@Anonymous wrote:

This site provides the most accurate scores and they are true FICO scores which most potential lenders use. Credit Karma provides a Vantage 3.0 score which is used very little potential creditors.  While CK is free and can be helpful to monitor payment dates and showing such items as inquiries it is not an accurate reflection of ones credit scores and often provides completely erroneous information.

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Just had my scores pulled by USBank for a motgage, and the free CK scores were more accurate than the scores I paid for on MyFico 

I find CK ok for checking on what is going on, and I am not sure I how much to "trust" this site as there are now so many different scores available to lenders

[HiLine]

Credit Karma is the best for monitoring.

For actual FICO scores though, well, obviously this website ....

[Anonymous]

I use Transunion plus and Smart credit for TU and USAA for EQ and EX .

[App_Addict]

There is no other way IMHO than TRUE FICO monitoring!  I get mine from several sources including this site.  I just don't have a need for the FAKO scores.

[Anonymous]

This site and also MyPrivacyMatters.

[Revelate]

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@MidnightVoice wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

This site provides the most accurate scores and they are true FICO scores which most potential lenders use. Credit Karma provides a Vantage 3.0 score which is used very little potential creditors.  While CK is free and can be helpful to monitor payment dates and showing such items as inquiries it is not an accurate reflection of ones credit scores and often provides completely erroneous information.

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Just had my scores pulled by USBank for a motgage, and the free CK scores were more accurate than the scores I paid for on MyFico 

I find CK ok for checking on what is going on, and I am not sure I how much to "trust" this site as there are now so many different scores available to lenders

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Not anymore mong, at least on the individual pulls for EQ and EX and the corresponding 3B cannot get better than myFICO at this point for mortgage estimation.  Equifax Scorepower ties myFICO here now, think they're identically priced too these days.

For monitoring though, agreed not so much.  

Personally I review report changes in CK for EQ/TU and think will wind up with credit.com for EX, maybe a mix with CS.  Scores I get from a number of places including here.

[Anonymous]

CK is useless for checking scores. CK is awesome for checking reports. Free weekly report access to both EQ and TU is something that beats out all the competition. Nothing compares to it. But CK scores are useless. You might coincidentally find they are close to a score used by a lender for a specific purpose, but that is merely coincidence. The formula (Vantage score) used by CK now is not used by lenders and is basically for educational purposes only. 

Even FICO scores have limited value since there are dozens of versions when you include industry enhanced versions, etc. myFICO's new system that provides Auto/Home loan scores makes it more useful for score purposes since the FICO 8 scores are good for many CC issuers and adding home/auto loan scores makes it more useful than before. But the monitoring service only provides yearly report access, though you do get updated information if alert triggering changes occur to your report. Unlike CK, myFICO also monitors all 3 reports, but you can use CK with CS for Experian and get free monitoring for all three bureaus. 

In a nutshell, you don't need myFICO's service for monitoring your credit reports and building a good credit score. Nevertheless, for those looking for an actual score for loan purposes, the myFICO scores are the ones you will likely want. 

[takeshi74]

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@princessminor wrote:

Hello all, I've been browsing  and I see Credit Karma mentioned a lot.  I'm wondering how people feel about this company and where would be a good place to go to find one's more accurate scores.

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All scores are accurate but only for their own model.  In other words, you can only rely on CK's VantageScore 3.0 if you're applying with a creditor that uses VantageScore 3.0.  If a creditor uses a FICO score then VantageScore isn't going to be relevant.

I currently use CK to monitor my TransUnion and Equifax reports.  When I needed to perform daily pulls when figuring out the optimal day to apply I was using Eliminate ID Theft (EIDT).  It's inexpensive but it does have a kludgy interface and it takes them several days to get a new account set up.

USAA's CCMP also seems to be a popular monitoring service and you can negotiate lower pricing on their service for daily pulls if desired.

There are prior threads you can refer to for suggestions as well.  Unfortunately, the old CMS Guide was pulled due to being outdated and has not yet been replaced.

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@MidnightVoice wrote:

Just had my scores pulled by USBank for a motgage, and the free CK scores were more accurate than the scores I paid for on MyFico.

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While many credit card decisions are made with the 08 scores provided by myFICO, 08 isn't the only FICO model used by creditors.  People tend to say "only rely on FICO" but, as indicated in the stickies in the Understanding FICO Scoring subforum there are many more than just one FICO model used by creditors.  The specific model does matter as well as the CRA used as the data source for generating the score.

Mortgage lenders frequently use the 04 model but, again, different models can be used by different lenders.

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@MidnightVoice wrote:

I find CK ok for checking on what is going on, and I am not sure I how much to "trust" this site as there are now so many different scores available to lenders

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Nothing new.  There have been many models in use for a very long time.  As with any comparison make sure you're comparing apples to apples or at least aware of the differences between the two things you're comparing.  Even when comparing FICO to FICO you should expect different algorithms to produce different results.