SFR Investor · Springfield, VA · Member since 2012 · 6 posts · 2 votes
Does anyone know the best way to get my personal credit score from all 3 agencies?
Ideally, I'd like to get the score for all three agencies and then be able to monitor changes on it for the next month or so. But it would also be fine if I could get the 3 scores for a low price, and then pay the same low price again when I need to check on the scores a few weeks later.
Investor · Willow Spring, NC · Member since 2009 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
14y
The only "official" site for annual free credit report is www.annualcreditreport.com. The last I checked, it was inexpensive to get the score (number)... but I never get the score, just the credit "facts", which are free.
Investor · Willow Spring, NC · Member since 2009 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
14y
The only "official" site for annual free credit report is www.annualcreditreport.com. The last I checked, it was inexpensive to get the score (number)... but I never get the score, just the credit "facts", which are free.
Tucson, AZ · Member since 2012 · 29 posts · 5 votes
14y
You can get two of your credit scores for free and a range on the third for free. I just did this last night. My understanding is that this will be a soft pull.
Credit Sesame will give you your Experian score,
Credit Karma will give you Transunion, and
Equifax Credit Score Card will give you a range.
Here's a link I found from someone who walks you through the various sites: http://www.moolanomy.com/826/get-your-free-credit-score-online/
Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
14y
Clark Howard recommends CreditKarma.com (they're free and give a TransUnion score)...and I've had a good experience with them...
And because AnnualCreditReport.com will give you your report for free (no score) for each agency once per year, every 4 months I'll pull my credit from a different agency and it's always free.
Investor · Willow Spring, NC · Member since 2009 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
14y
J Scott good idea on the 'rotation' every 4 months. I never thought to do that.
Regarding Credit Karma, just realize that they display targeted advertisements based on personal information. Not that this is good or bad, but some people may object to this policy. Their site says "Our free credit scores are sponsored by partners who share our vision that consumers should have free and regular access to their score." Seems like these sites can be a huge benefit for people looking for credit score improvement.
Residential Real Estate Agent · Mt. Pleasant, SC · Member since 2010 · 257 posts · 130 votes
14y
I have found CreditKarma's scores to be inaccurate. I recently pulled all 3 credit scores through Equifax, and my CreditKarma score was almost 100 points off from any of the 3. I've updated it several times with the same result. However, it does show you various statistics and how they are affecting your score, like age of credit, total lines opens, and debt ratios, and this can be useful.
Sandy Springs, GA · Member since 2011 · 126 posts · 31 votes
14y
To get your Transunion and Equifax FICO scores, go to myfico.com. CreditKarma is not a FICO score and FICO scores are what all lenders use when assessing credit.
The only way to get your Experian FICO score is to be apart of an organization that has access to it. The only organization I know of is PSECU, and I am apart of that credit union.
Investor · Willow Spring, NC · Member since 2009 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
14y
TransUnion scores aren't a FICO score. See TransUnions's page How Credit Scoring Works where they say "Consumer scores fall within a range of 501 to 990..." FICO scores are 300 to 850.
SFR Investor · Dallas, TX · Member since 2011 · 604 posts · 243 votes
14y
just remember, there are FICO scores, and then everything else is a "FAKO", its fine to monitor your scores to look for trends in your score with a FAKO, but there is no way to determine FICO from FAKO scores.
Generally if a FAKO is going up, the FICO probable is,,but not always because the formula to come up with the scores is different
It seems like I'm always having my FICO's pulled for a refinance, and I watch FAKO's from all 3 bureaus,,,and believe me, there is no relationship to FICO and FAKOs
Tucson, AZ · Member since 2012 · 29 posts · 5 votes
14y
Originally posted by Andy Collins:
It seems like I'm always having my FICO's pulled for a refinance, and I watch FAKO's from all 3 bureaus,,,and believe me, there is no relationship to FICO and FAKOs
... that answered my question. Are you talking granularity or general numbers? In other words, given my numbers below, do you think I'd have to worry about my credit score being below 740? I haven't used credit (other than credit cards) since 2000, when I got a car loan. I haven't had any loans since then so I haven't worried about my FICO score.
My daughter (22 years old): pulled her CreditKarma score and it was ~780. She's very good about credit and I added her as an authorized user on my oldest credit card a couple of years ago. Her student loans and car are paid off and she has no debt other than paying off her credit card every month.
On the Credit Karma report for me, it had one account in collections. So I got a free annual copy of my TransUnion credit report and found an unpaid parking ticket that went to collections. I'll take care of it.
CreditKarma also lowered my score due to low average age of credit lines. I closed a bunch of dormant credit cards a few years ago and pretty much only use one credit card, which I pay off the balance every month. That gave me an average age of open credit lines of 3yrs 10mos.
I also took a hit for total credit lines (5 open, 9 closed) which is low - I would have scored higher on CreditKarma if I had more lines of credit.
I'm not going to worry about any of these issues yet but I want to have a 740+ FICO when I take out a mortgage.
Property Manager · Livonia, MI · Member since 2011 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
14y
Originally posted by Chris Martin:
TransUnion scores aren't a FICO score. See TransUnions's page How Credit Scoring Works where they say "Consumer scores fall within a range of 501 to 990..." FICO scores are 300 to 850.
no wonder my tenants showed incredibly high scores for renting (above 700). i was always wondering why they are renting if they have the money and a high credit score.
SFR Investor · Dallas, TX · Member since 2011 · 604 posts · 243 votes
14y
there is no way to know, your scores look great, ,,get the collection off, DO NOT add any accounts until after you get the mortgage, when you open a new account your average age of accounts will go down farther,,but you need more open lines of credit.
One thing you can do right before you get the mortgage, pay that one credit card off or down before the statement closing date,,most companies report balances on the date of the statement, so even if your paying it off every month, it could have a high balance reporting,,if your below 20% of available credit then it doesn't matter.
Keep hard inquiries down, checking your own report won't hurt you, but "shopping" for rates can really hurt you because of numerous inquiries will bring down your score, more than you might realize (I've seen one inquiry drop my FICO by 10 point with TU and Experian
Tucson, AZ · Member since 2012 · 29 posts · 5 votes
14y
Originally posted by George P.:
no wonder my tenants showed incredibly high scores for renting (above 700). i was always wondering why they are renting if they have the money and a high credit score.
George, I'll chime in on this one. I've rented for several reasons.
1) My work history since 9/11 has sucked. I was a fairly new United pilot who still flew part time with the Guard. I lost my airline job in Mar 2002 and had to take any job that no one else wanted with the Guard and then the AF Reserves to keep an income. I took a couple of civilian jobs but they didn't pan out.
There were points in 2003/4 that I alternated living in a storage unit, my car, and hotels. When I updated my security clearance, I had 16 different addresses in 10 years. Which brings me to
2) I've moved around a LOT. Chicago, St Louis, LA, St Louis, DC, Miami, DC, San Antonio, DC, San Antonio, Tucson. There are hefty round trip transaction fees on real estate. I crunched the numbers quite a while ago and came up with something >10%. Realtor commission, loan origination fees, title, inspection, appraisal, points, etc. And finally,
3) I saw increasingly exotic mortgage products offered 2001-2007. This told me that we were in a real estate bubble that would eventually pop. With my spotty income stream, I couldn't buy anything until ~2006 and by then, I was in the DC area and was looking at unsustainable numbers. You simply can't build 50K new housing units/yr when the population growth is 15K/yr (that was the county stats in metro DC that I was looking at). Speculators were going in and buying properties - they were fine with leaving the properties vacant and riding the capital appreciation on the asset. I knew that was unsustainable.
Lender · Tyngsboro, MA · Member since 2009 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
14y
Originally posted by Andy Hayes:
I lost my airline job in Mar 2002 and had to whore myself out with the Guard and then the AF Reserves to keep an income.
Although it may not have been your first choice of job, I think you might have a few people taking exception to your concept that serving your country was "whore[ing] myself out".
Tucson, AZ · Member since 2012 · 29 posts · 5 votes
14y
Originally posted by Ann Bellamy:
Although it may not have been your first choice of job, I think you might have a few people taking exception to your concept that serving your country was "whore[ing] myself out".
My apologies; poor verbiage on my part. I'll edit my original post.
There is absolutely no regret on my part for the path that I have traveled over the last decade.
As a part timer, it meant taking a job anywhere, any time, doing anything. All of these jobs were important but were hard to fill that most were not willing to step forward and volunteer for. Lots of tent living in a part of the world where most would not want to go.
I keep forgetting that I can't use the same language that was used when I enlisted back in 1980 - things like 'embrace the suck' and 'FUBAR' don't play well to a wider audience. Sorry to all who were offended by my barracks lingo.
SFR Investor · Springfield, VA · Member since 2012 · 6 posts · 2 votes
14y
As the OP on this thread, I should probably chime in and let people know what all I found out:
I ended up going with this company:
http://www.identityguard.com/
I made the decisions based on information found in this random web page: http://www.knowzy.com/credit-monitoring-comparison.htm
The reason I trusted the information on the above linked web page is because it looks like it was written by a person who was faced with this problem and did a bunch of their own research. It was the only web page I could find of this nature that didn't look extremely biased and "scammy".
Identity Guard gave me all three of what I think are my genuine FICO scores. The reason I think that they are probably genuine is because I ran my Equifax FICO score separately (paying $20) to verify and the score Equifax gave me directly was identical to the Equifax score reported to me by Identity Guard.
This leaves 3 possibilities:
1) Identify Guard reports genuine FICO scores for all three agencies
2) Identify Guard is owned by Equifax so they report the genuine Equifax FICO score, but estimates for Experian and Trans Union
3) Identify Guard only reports estimates of FICO scores (FAKO scores) for all three agencies and the fact that my genuine Equifax FICO score matched what Identify Guard gave me was giant coincidence.
I suspect possibility 1 or 2. I should also point out that I found Identity Guard to be useful and "straight up" almost all of the credit reporting sites seem to be extremely "scammy." I did not feel this way about Identity Guard. I previously used FreeScore.com. I successively got scores from them and then cancelled the trial period before paying, however their site was extremely difficult to navigate due to all the scammy misdirection they used.
Residential Landlord · Kailua-Kona, HI · Member since 2012 · 111 posts · 15 votes
14y
I will suggest those are real however it was a bit pricey to do that. J Scott had a better idea. AnnualCreditReport.com for 7.95 seems the most efficient option. I'm going to go try that.
Why do they give a free report ?
They are required to give you the one report free by federal law ... from the FAQs
"In addition to consumers who are eligible for a free credit report through the Annual Credit Report Request Service; consumers in some states are eligible for a free credit report under state law. The following states have laws that make free credit reports available to consumers: Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont."
Real Estate Investor · Nellis Afb, NV · Member since 2011 · 29 posts · 1 vote
14y
USAA bank offers a credit reporting monitoring service for $13 a month. You get all 3 reports and can refresh it once daily. I personally use and recommend it for monitoring all 3!
The bank used to be military only however now that has changed and you can be civilian as well.
SFR Investor · Springfield, VA · Member since 2012 · 6 posts · 2 votes
14y
Wait, what? Civilians can use USAA now? Aren't they one of the best companies in the country?
Originally posted by Armando Gutierrez :
USAA bank offers a credit reporting monitoring service for $13 a month. You get all 3 reports and can refresh it once daily. I personally use and recommend it for monitoring all 3!
The bank used to be military only however now that has changed and you can be civilian as well.
Sandy Springs, GA · Member since 2011 · 126 posts · 31 votes
14y
Originally posted by Armando Gutierrez :
USAA bank offers a credit reporting monitoring service for $13 a month. You get all 3 reports and can refresh it once daily. I personally use and recommend it for monitoring all 3!
The bank used to be military only however now that has changed and you can be civilian as well.
I use USAA's monitoring service too and HIGHLY recommend it, not for the FAKO scores but it shows all 3 of your reports anytime you want it.
U can join USAA as a civilian but you can't get the insurance, just checking/savings/credit products.