I seem to be doing rather poorly with the # of accounts thing, and just have to ask, how the heck do you get that many freaking accounts? Am I supposed to be taking out loans for furniture, cars, pretty much everything I buy?

Nice! I'm going to give this a shot. I'm not gonna get all kinds of crap in the mail after I sign up though right?

It dings you rather severely for having little or no debt.

@downwithmonstercable: Yeah, let us know if you do. :-)

@nataku83: I have friends that moved into a new place two years ago and took out a credit card for every place they bought stuff at; Home Depot, Lowe's, Sears, etc. Their reasoning was that it was 0% interest for a year, which they could pay off quickly, but then they bought a new car.

@catnapped: I don't understand what you mean. Could you elaborate?

@nataku83: Yeah, that was my lowest score as well, and that they want you to have FORTY-ONE accounts to get an A boggles my mind.

However, I do note that it counts both open and closed accounts. And I'm guessing that it's actually counting credit cards where they've closed the account because the number changed -- card was stolen or number was compromised -- as separate closed accounts, because there's no way I've closed 14 accounts in my life. I think I've closed ONE, and that was my one and only store credit card when the store went out of business. (Oh, well, I did pay off a student loan. So maybe two.)

@downwithmonstercable: I signed up for it last time Consumerist mentioned it (using my semi-spammy e-mail account) and I have gotten no spam and no snail junk mail.

This looks GREAT! Wish it were posted a day sooner - for the first time ever I paid for my credit score online last night - bad timing!

This is a little thin on details. Who are these guys? Why are they giving this service away for "free"? What's the catch, and why should I let them see my credit reports to begin with?

I signed up and have fairly good grades with the exception of my utilization rate (C+ for having 0%). I guess I'm gonna have to go on a wild spending spree to fix that. (NOT!)

I found out what I had suspected: I lose huge points for never carrying a balance and keeping only a few accounts- stuff I believe is a practice in responsibility.

I don't know how people keep track of 41 accounts and suspect the answer (much to the glee of fee-happy lenders) is "they don't."

@max_k:

I can appreciate your concern. We launched the service over a year ago and have been featured on WSJ, Bloomberg, and of course The Consumerist in the past.

Our press page should give you a sense our credibility.

[www.creditkarma.com]

@nataku83: Which is interesting, because my last credit report (a month ago) told me that my plus point was that i have enough lines of credit with different people, and thats a great thing. I only have 2 credit cards, citi-visa, and amex, and one car lease loan.

Maybe they grade the curve according to age/status? (not implying that any of you are ancient or over the hill or anything...)

@downwithmonstercable: I've been on Credit Karma for almost a year and I don't get anything at all. Though I also used optoutprescreen.com so that might help. Credit Karma seems pretty good. I'm closing on a house and found out my actual score. Credit Karma had me 30 points too low, but still a good estimate.

@downwithmonstercable:

We really believe in doing the right thing for the consumer so no unsolicited emails and no selling, renting, or sharing of user information.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Cool. I'll get this going when I get home from work. I'm interested to see what it says.

My/my wife's credit was excellent when we bought our condo three years ago. Nothing bad has happened, except that my credit card that I got in college was closed because I never used it, so it shortened by credit history by a couple years. I'm hoping the impact isn't too bad.

@MercuryPDX: Is the utilization rate really what it sounds like? Like, it's better to have a cc balance rather than not have one?

@kduhtoe: Look in the graphic above where it says "open credit card utilization" (which is how much of your available credit limit you're using). The example person has 0% and got a "C" rating. Mine was a "D" rating (again very low utilization). Unless the site's interpretation is that you have too much potential available credit that you can go on a field day, they're saying you NEED to be in debt to get a higher rating.

This is excellent for someone like me who is looking to pay off debt and increase their credit score.

Regarding the 43 accounts thing, it seems to track ALL open accounts (including store cards) on your report..and let's remember even if you close an account, it's on your report for 10 years. Apparently I have 8 open accounts and there's no way I have 8 different credit cards. But when I think of additional accounts that I have and never use (like Macy's), 8 sounds about right.

@MercuryPDX: That's what I said--ridiculous.

@catnapped: I have heard financial "get-out-of-debt" gurus like Dave Ramsey talk about having a zero credit score after being totally out of debt long enough. The reasoning is along the lines of "How can a bank rate your risk if you don't have any risk?" Bad when applying for loans, but great in the long run.

It gave me a D for my credit mix. I think it's because I no longer have a mortgage. We are military and only bought a house at one duty station. But overall my score rocked.

@MostlyHarmless: No, I just checked, it saying 41 for me as well. Something weird.

And I get an F in that category. Sucks.

I also have an F in the "average length of the credit account" category. 1 year and 2 months. Looooong slog ahead.

Also, having only 1-2 hard inquiries dents your grade. How are you supposed to get 41 accounts without inquiries?

There dont seem to be any other surprises. Now they didnt ask for my credit card numbers... so I guess no chance of them sneaking in a charge, is there? (if they did, would it be unauthorized and of highly illegal?)

@downwithmonstercable: It is exactly what it sounds like:

"Credit card utilization is defined as the total credit card debt you have divided by the total available credit on your credit cards. High credit card utilization can be a warning sign of credit risk."

(I guess Low Utilization is bad too)

Sweet! Opened my first student credit card 2 months ago, and already at a 731. I guess I get dinged for "utilization." My limit is so low, every dollar has a drastic impact on that fact.

I did fail a few categories, as a result of being so new to it all. Glad to know my sense of responsibility has paid off so far, though.

Nice looks legit .. The score was comparable the the MyFico score i got from the free trial .. But one thing that was odd was it did the A,b,c,d thing for loans i have out the confirm my account .. no none of the answer had anything to do with me as far as auto loan and i do not even have a mortgage loan ..

@MercuryPDX: I think you just need to utilize your credit cards, not carry a balance. At least for mine, it seems to show roughly what I charge each month, which is always paid in full. I got an 'A' for 8% utilization.

@jonthomasdesigns: Wow i think i had to much Yerba Mate this morning .. I cant even type ..

drawn from your TransUnion report

Does anyone actually use TransUnion when checking your credit? Anytime someone has checked mine they've used Equifax. Nobody seems to care what the other two bureaus think.

Having "only" 9 total accounts gives me an F for that category. Yay! I will go out and open a couple dozen more accounts to take care of that, because it seems like the responsible thing to do!

IF you have fraud protection on your accounts this service is useless as they cannot access credit scores.

@Pete Kopplin: I think in many cases the demographic Dave Ramsey is talking to no longer needs a credit score. They've got a house, a solid job (well, maybe not now), and likely aren't in a position that they need to take on new debt. A few exceptions I can think of, though, would be cosigning for their children (student loans, first apartments, and the like). I may be completely wrong; I'm just conjecturing.

@Kamidari: That's odd - I replied to a different post, but it ended up here. Oh well, at least it's on a post on the same topic. ;)

@jonthomasdesigns: It's a trick question for someone who would try to impersonate you. One of the options is "None of the above", which IS a valid answer that can help identify you. :)

It's like Mint.com. They make money by offering you credit cards and other offers, which they also use to pay off Transunion to get your credit information. Also, like Mint, it seems super legit. They should get together with Mint, I think. :)

@CK_Founder: Well I guess that about answers it. Straight from the founder's keyboard.

I find this service to be highly useful in being able to explain in simple ENGLISH TERMS.

Unfortunately, CK's computation of open credit utilization is buggy:

CK correctly added the current balances of my two credit cards but they didn't sum the available credit of the two cards as well. Instead they used only one card's available credit limit and thus I received a 'C' grade for 48% open credit utilization when the correct grade is actually 'A' (7% utilization). This significantly impacted my final score. I know that both cards appear on my Transunion report. (Otherwise, how could they have summed the credit amounts?)

@MercuryPDX: Utilization doesn't mean you're carrying debt. It just means that you use your cards.

For example, I put as much as possible on my cards every month (basically *everything*), and then pay the statement balance in full each month. My utilization is around 15%, because the bank reports what's on the cards at the time of reporting, not how much debt I'm carrying over from month to month (which is $0).

If you have $0 utilization, then you're doing something wrong. You could be getting close to 2% average cash back with the right mix of cards (or more if you're really diligent), without spending any money carrying a balance. This is basically free money, paid for by the people who do carry balances and the merchants who are footing bill on the transaction fees.

@MercuryPDX: Weird. I wonder if they consider it a good thing to keep a "healthy" (ie, not super-high) balance and keep paying it on time? Maybe it helps prove you can actually make payments on time?

But even still. You're paying interest on something rather than being responsible and using cash when able. I guess I get it, but it sucks that it hurts you in the process of raising your score.

@downwithmonstercable:

This is actually a misnomer. CC companies report your balances on a given date not based on your "revolving" balance. This means you don't have to pay interest to show utilization. It simply means you have to use your card. We recommend a tank of gas a month paid in full to show usage while not overspending

From what I can tell... these grades aren't based on actual credit score advice, but based on comparisons to other CK user data.

Example: Users in the 41+ account bracket on CK happen to have higher scores. That does not mean you need to have 41+ accounts to have a higher credit score. 41+ accounts on CK have an average score of 697.

This score card is only useful in comparing yourself to others, not necessarily taking steps to increase your own credit score. Which, CK should probably inform users about, in my opinion.

@Jason Asylum: Ah, looks like they do.

"Our goal is to help users identify areas they need to improve by providing comparative metrics against other members."

Not exactly super clear, and its at the end of the intro paragraph.

But there you have it... these are just comparative metrics, grades based on where you stand against other CK members, not grades based on your actual credit health.

@CK_Founder: Tank of gas is what $40-50? Probably not going to count for much in the utilization category if they're putting weight into it (and assuming you don't have a $500 credit limit)

@Rectilinear Propagation: Citibank seems to prefer TU, at least around these parts. YMMV

@Nate128: They didn't care for me having 4 open and 4 closed accounts either (think I got an "F" there as well)

@CK_Founder: I have all my house accounts (Cable, utilities, phone) and my incidental charges (Gas, dining out, shopping) charging to one credit card (roughly $600-$800/mo.) which gets paid off every month.

So you're suggesting I rotate out the incidentals to one or two other cards instead?

Pft... Credit Karma says I have a grade F for Percent of on time payments. Considering I haven't made a single late payment for well over nine years, I'd love to see how they came to that conclusion.