credit karma score

[Anonymous]

I had something deleted from my credit report and my credit karma score dropped 17 points. I know their score isn't very accurate, but kinda mind boggling why they would say it dropped 17 points. Any idea why it would drop?

[lhcole77]

What was deleted? Your AAoA may have been affected.

[jetsfan2013]

How old was the TL that was deleted? I had an old acct deleted a few yrs back (10 yr old TL) and mine went down 20 points. 4 months later it was back to where it began FWIW.

[pipeguy]

I would not worry much (at all) about Credit Karma scoring - the "vantage score" included is closer to an actual FICO. I have more CC's than I can carry, with  more than a few with 10k+ CL's and a true FICO north of 745 (monthly transunion using Walmart, Barclay and Discover). Credit Karma score is 638 - go figure.

Note too that Capital One uses CK for their "public account scoring" where I show 642 - less than 30 days ago Capital One opened a new Venture Signature Visa account for me with an $8500 CL - the papers that came with the card said Fico = 741.

Although your actual score is unimportant, or at least over rated on a day by day basis, the ability to open accounts with usable credit lines is important and "real" scores play a role in computer generated approvals - Capital One offers sub-prime cards and CL's to credit scores of 638-642, they sure don't offer Visa Signature cards to anyone in that range (that I know of).

[Anonymous]

My guess would be, your score dropped because Credit Karma is not accurate (lol). I was with CK & dropped them because of their inaccuracy and went with MyFico. I'm with Credit Sesame & it's also free, try them and compare. But don't rely on any information either one gives you..

[Anonymous]

You mentioned the "Visa Signature". Perhaps you can help me with a question. I applied for the "Chase Sapphire" (its a VISA SIGNATURE CARD) & was approved about a year ago. My question is, what's the meaning, difference or advantage of have a "Visa Signature Card"? I haven't noticed any. If anything, my APR is (16% variable) higher than my "DISCOVER & Barclay's" cards, the points are not that great. I just thought that a "VISA SIGNATURE" had something else the others didn't.

[reneasworld]

I had noticed that my Credit Karma score had been fluxing irregularly lately also. Recently, it did not update my credit balance increases on my cards and none of the recent months on many of the cards were not in my dashboard when they previously had been there. It states that if the information is not current then Transunion or the creditor is not supplying the updated information. I finally went ahead and pulled my FICO score for TU and it was a difference of almost 50 points higher. It was closer to the Vantage score like someone said earlier. Also, the FICO report had all of the current CC info, so I don't know how much value I am placing in CK anymore.

[pipeguy]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

You mentioned the "Visa Signature". Perhaps you can help me with a question. I applied for the "Chase Sapphire" (its a VISA SIGNATURE CARD) & was approved about a year ago. My question is, what's the meaning, difference or advantage of have a "Visa Signature Card"? I haven't noticed any. If anything, my APR is (16% variable) higher than my "DISCOVER & Barclay's" cards, the points are not that great. I just thought that a "VISA SIGNATURE" had something else the others didn't.

---

Visa Signature and MasterCard World Elite are "benefit packages" that come with the card. Generally these cards have a minimum of a $5000 Credit Limit, although I don't think that's an absolute. A long time ago there are 3 levels of MC/V standard or basic, Gold which was generally a higher credit limit and "platinum" which was an elite level with added benefits and higher credit limits, over time "platinum" got WAY over used and every issuer used platinum for their cards. Today platinum is a basic or standard card, Gold is almost non-existant and Signature/World Elite are the new Platinum or better benefit/ higher credit limit cards.

This does not mean a plain basic card can not have a 5 digit credit limit, and as a example using BB&T they don't use any classic names for their cards all personal cards are called "Bright" (no gold or platinum)  with "Signature" reserved for their "Wealth Services" accounts. All of this is marketing and many Signature- World Elite cards are annual fee cards where the account holder willfully opts in to pay the fee (rather than sub-prime cards that charge a fee just to have the card).

Bottom line is that "elite status" (free version and to some extent AF version) require higher scores and income to be accepted (issued-approved), but it's marketing and ego massaging more than anything because the merchant couldn't care less if its a Credit One ($175 AF, $30% APR) or a Centurian AmEx when you go to pay for your $40 purchase. Now the kid behind the register making $8 an hour who you've never seen before might be impressed with your graphite-platinum emerald encrusted credit card, but it's you that has to pay the bill when its due.  

Understand the marketng and use it to YOUR advantage, anything other than that is buying into the hype.

[celluloid17]

My CK score just dropped 9 points because it appears that Discover is now reporting themselves as Discover Bank and not Discover Financial.  Credit Karma shows this as one account closing and one opening with the same credit limit and age, but for some reason it resulted in a score drop.  I realize this is just a FAKO, but those 9 points were the difference between Excellent and Good credit according to their metrics.  I know it's not legit, but it still annoys me to see it nonetheless! 

[EW800]

Discover did the name change on my reports as well, however as of yet I am not seeing any score change as a result. If nothing else changed, I suspect that you will be fine as far as true FICO scores.