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Paying $35 a month for Credit Karma was a total scam for 2 years
I used to rely on Credit Karma's paid tier to track my score daily. Thought I was smart about it. Then I actually pulled my real FICO from my bank's app and realized they were showing me VantageScore 3.0 which nobody uses. My actual mortgage lender score was 40 points lower. Switched to free Experian and Discover's free FICO score last March. Has anyone else found a huge gap between what those free apps show and what lenders actually pull?
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shane_wilson3mo ago
Wait, has anyone actually tried to get Credit Karma to explain the difference when you call them? My buddy Dave spent two years paying for their premium tier and when he finally questioned why his score was 45 points off from what his credit union showed, they basically told him "well those are different models" like it was no big deal (which is insane after he paid them $35 a month). He was so mad he actually did the math and realized he spent over $800 on a fake score that lenders don't even look at, which is basically like paying for a gym membership you never use except worse because the gym doesn't lie about what equipment they have. The wild part is he switched to just tracking his FICO 8 through his banks free service and his credit card issuers app, and now he's actually improving his real score instead of chasing some phantom number that only exists in Credit Karma's fantasy land.
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val9743mo ago
Is Credit Karma even legally required to tell you they are showing a different scoring model than what lenders use? I found out the hard way when my auto loan application got denied because the dealer pulled my FICO Auto Score 8 which was 50 points lower than what CK showed me. Make sure you check what version of FICO your bank actually reports since some give you FICO 8 and others use FICO 9 which lenders might not use yet.
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jennybailey3mo ago
Oh great, so Credit Karma is basically the "hey I'm a 10" but shows up looking like a 5 in real life situation lol. I swear those scoring models are like a secret menu at a fast food place except nobody tells you the real prices until you're already at the drive thru window. The fact that they can show you a number that's basically made up candyland math while lenders use some totally different dark magic version is just wild to me. I had a friend who spent a whole year getting their CK score up only to find out the mortgage lender used something called FICO 2 or 4 or whatever and it was 60 points lower lmao. At this point just tell me my credit score is what you think it should be and I'll mentally subtract 50 points for safety.
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