Here's an offer for you simply for being an FMF reader -- FREE credit alerts (a new service from Credit Karma)!
Here's how the credit alerts work:
1. Credit Karma monitors your credit report for free on a daily basis.
2. A change occurs in your credit file (say, a new credit inquiry, a new address, or a fraud alert, for example).
3. Credit Karma catches wind of the new activity and lets you know by sending you a Credit Alert in your email inbox.
In other words, all you have to do is check your email to keep up-to-date on your credit activity, and it’s always free for you!
The Credit Alerts are only available on a limited basis at this point (at least that's my understanding), but if you want one, you can get it here. This link will be good for the first 200 people who want the service.
Disclaimer: I do not use this service and can not endorse it one way or the other (I've never tried it so I can't say if it's good or bad.) The company simply offered me free accounts and I thought some of you might like this service, so I'm making it available. As with anything, use your own judgment whether or not this will work for you. And if you do try it, please come back and comment here telling the rest of us what you think of it.
Is this a paid advertisement?
Posted by: Mark | July 12, 2011 at 09:07 AM
Mark --
No, but thanks for being cynical. I'll put you down for the "never try to offer him anything free" list.
Posted by: FMF | July 12, 2011 at 09:18 AM
The service is already free it seems.
Posted by: SamCates | July 12, 2011 at 10:33 AM
"The company simply offered me free accounts..."
As SamCates pointed out, this is already a free service, so the company duped you into giving them an advertisement.
Posted by: cmadler | July 12, 2011 at 10:40 AM
After satisfying myself Credit Karma isn't an ID theft scam, I signed up. Thanks for the invite! The scores it's estimating for me are believable, but I've never accessed a "real" FICO score, so I have nothing to benchmark it against. I'll post again once I've seen how the monitoring works.
Posted by: 08graduate | July 12, 2011 at 10:49 AM
@SamCates, cmadler
I don't see anything about credit alerts/monitoring in Credit Karma's public marketing material. I think that's the service we're getting for free (or, more cynically, beta testing) through FMF's link.
Posted by: 08graduate | July 12, 2011 at 10:52 AM
@08graduate
This is not a "real" FICO score. It is Transunion's proprietary score called TransRisk. There's no real way to know if this is actually the score used by/given to lenders when making making an evaluation of your credit worthiness. In fact I'm a little skeptical since I just had my score pulled as part of a refi inquiry and it was 795...CreditKarma shows the score @ 732 which is a huge difference in less than two weeks time.
From their FAQs:
I received a credit score from another service and it was different. Why is that?
There are many, different types of credit scores available from different lenders, credit bureaus, and credit score providers. The three major credit bureaus each offer their own brand of credit score, such as TransUnion's TransRisk score, based on their individual proprietary models for calculating a credit score. Each credit score model derives information from your credit report as provided by that particular bureau, and credit report data can also vary from bureau to bureau. Additionally, independent companies such as Fair, Issac and Company and its FICO score, distribute their own credit score based on their proprietary model that takes into consideration credit reports from all three major credit bureaus. Credit Karma provides the TransRisk New Account Score, VantageScore, and Auto Insurance Risk Score from TransUnion.
The common thread among all credit score models is that they are a measurement of your creditworthiness, each with their own scale, factors, and credit report data taken into consideration. It is hard to say which model is superior, but picking a single credit score model and tracking it over time will help you understand and manage your credit health. This is a significant reason why we encourage you to come back and check your score often at Credit Karma.
Posted by: Travis | July 12, 2011 at 11:41 AM
Oh an to add to my previous comment. There have been some lawsuits in the past over companies giving FAKO scores instead of FICO scores to consumers who pay for their score. The latest is from freecreditreport.com (Experian). http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/08/6501972-lawsuit-credit-score-sites-mislead-consumers
So while this may be a decent indicator of you credit worthiness take it with a grain of salt.
Posted by: Travis | July 12, 2011 at 11:42 AM
I had a credit karma account already, this added the monitoring service. Thanks! Yes it's not an exact score, but it did give me some info the other free ones weren't giving me.
Posted by: erica | July 12, 2011 at 12:05 PM
I have been a member of Credit Karma for a while and have been pretty happy with them. This was a no brainer to sign up for free notifications. Thanks FMF. There's only about 70 left.
Posted by: Eric | July 13, 2011 at 11:41 PM