Here are 5 ways to get your credit score for free. Note, all of them are the credit scores developed by the credit bureaus themselves, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, and are not your actual FICO scores. Only the FICO score is used by lenders to determine your credit worthiness. However, you can at least use these credit bureau scores to get a general sense of how good your credit is.
Another way these are useful is that if you check in periodically and keep track of the results, you can see how your score fluctuates and try to correlate its delta with any credit-related actions you took during that time. But, if you’re shopping for a loan or a mortgage, you will definitely want to pony up the cash and get your real FICO score.
[via MyMoneyBlog]
More From Consumerist
-
Study: 20,000 Trips To The Emergency Room In 2011 Linked To Consumption Of Energy Drinks
-
iPhone 5 Data-Gobbling Bug Affects AT&T Customers, Too
-
‘Children Are Just Plain Scared Of Santa’: A Former Mall Santa Tells All
-
Lose Your iPhone 5 Charger And You’ll Be Stuck With Expensive, Pretty Brick
-
Verizon’s iPhone 5 Math: Using The Same Amount Of Data Faster Counts As More Data
Even the Annualcreditreport.com gave me the blank page when I finally jumped through all of their hoops last year. More BS, different name. When I tried accessing again, the message was basically, “We already gave you your free score, now pay us if you want to see it again”.
fuck ‘em all. I’ve lived w/out using a credit card for 18 months now and don’t intend to start again. I hope anyone who works for any of these asswipe companies dies a slow, painful death. They can all rot in hell.
I was just looking for a way to access my score for free just yesterday. Thanks, Consumerist!
@speakerphoneon: I had this problem too! I have a credit monitoring service from transunion that i use because i am trying to improve my credit. when i first got my wamu card about a month ago, my score matched transunion’s service. Then I logged in a few nights ago, and suddenly it had plummeted 20 points! Worried, I logged into transunion, and nothing had changed. Not sure what they’re smoking over at WaMu, but their commercials do paint them as the new kids on the block of the banking business… maybe they’re experimenting with pot in their adolescence? lol
@allstarecho: I was confused by this as well. I thought your FICO was a formula that the credit monitoring agencies leased from the Fair Isaac company, tailored to their individual specifications for interpretation of your credit report. Now there’s ANOTHER score out there that I have to worry about? Why the hell have I been so worried about my score with Experian, TransUnion and Equifax if their scores are supposedly so inaccurate? When is this crap going to be regulated? If we can get copies of our credit reports for free each year, why would we not have access to our credit scores when they are so instrumental in judging our credit worthiness? I’m 21 and may be naive, so is there something I’m missing? I understand Fair Isaac is a business, but is this really the only way they can make money?
@bdragonmsl: As I understand, since you are the one accessing your report, the inquiry is coded as a “soft” pull rather than a “hard” pull, and it won’t affect your report or score.
@corporatemaericabites: I work tech support for a national company that does not outsource outside of the US. How do you know she was lying? Because of her accent? Is it that hard to imagine that in America, we could have someone that has an accent? Sheesh.
Just adding to my previous comment, the reason I ask the question at the end is because I’ve gotten transfers from people that say they’re relieved to hear someone that can actually speak english because the last person was obviously from India, when I know that’s not true. I agree that no matter where you’re from, phone jobs require you to be able to communicate effectively with your customers. I get frustrated when I talk to people in my own company that I can’t understand – but that doesn’t mean they’re overseas. Believe it or not, some people in America are idiotic and hard to understand, too.
A lot of creditors (auto dealerships/credit unions) often have licenses with one of the so-called “Big Three” to get your credit information. So if you pay for at least one of them, it should give you a decent idea. There’s the FICO, BEACON and Vantage algorithms but so long as the company you’re applying with uses one of Eq/Trans/Ex, you’ll get the gist.
You can see where the creditor pulled from if you get a 3-in-1 report or something. I use Identityguard through costco. It gives me all three scores and all three reports for 9.49/month, no hassles, ever.
if you get the blank page from creditkarma, just reload the page. The info is there….same thing happened to me
@Matsya: If I understand it correctly, then there are four credit scores from Equifax, Experian, Trans Union and Fair Isaac (FICO). The three credit reporting agencies have their credit databases from reports from creditors. How does Fair Isaac without a credit database calculate your “real” credit score ?
What type of attorney can be used to help correct false credit score data? I’m never going to deal with another false claim without an attorney. It’s worth the money to avoid the run-around. Is there a specific type of attorney?
Thinking about it in general – it seems like this would be a hell of a scalable service. Get some attorneys with good understanding of the law and bring them in-house to scale, get some field agents to do the run-around, then fight these battles for people. Same with getting AOL accounts canceled, quitting the gym, etc. Until then, though, I think the attorney is the best way to go.
So under what heading do I look in the yellow pages?
Credit Karma has just changed their scoring to a 850-point range to better mirror the credit agencies.
CreditKarma.com looked good. The rest wanted me to apply for a loan.
I paid for a Transunion credit score when I did my credit report on annualcreditreport.com last May.
I believe it’s based on the VantageScore model.
Score was 838 (on a 501-990 scale), which was rated as a B, and in the 65th percentile.
Total credit available to me is just under $29,000, but about half of that includes cards on my parents accounts.
The E-loan link lands you in the same place as the Credit Karma link. Just so you guys know.
The Washington Mutual (WaMu) scores are being discontinued by Chase (which now owns Washington Mutual). Effective March 2009, they will not be available.
Don’t forget Quizzle.com! You can get your free Experian credit report and score every six months, no catches. Quizzle also has some other cool tools like a home value estimator, a budget tool, personalized mortgage recommendations and more.