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Most offers for “free” financial information come with strings attached. Usually that means automatic enrollment in some sort of ongoing service. That’s why they want your credit card number. This disclaimer is normally tucked in the fine print, so it’s easy to miss.
The following free offers are truly free — with no hidden charges or fees.
Free credit monitoring
Millions of Americans spend $100 or more a year for credit monitoring to guard against possible identity theft.
This week, Credit Karma becomes the first company to offer free credit monitoring. Sign up for the service and they’ll check your TransUnion credit file once a day. If there’s any significant change in your account — a late payment, new accounts opened or credit inquiry — you’ll be notified via e-mail.
“We’re not going to sell your data. We’re not going to spam you. And we’re not going to charge you,” says Credit Karma CEO and founder Kenneth Lin. “We don’t even ask for a credit card number. It’s completely free.”
But the site may use your registration profile to match you with offers from its marketing partners, either via e-mail (if you opt-in for that) or through display ads. These other companies do not see your credit score or credit file.
All you need to provide to take advantage of this offer is your name, address and the last four digits of your Social Security number. Lin says this works for 90 percent of the time. If not, you will need to supply your full SSN to use the service.
Clearly, this not the same protection as you’d get from a company that monitors all three credit bureaus every day. But for those who want a little extra protection without paying for it, this may be the way to go.
Free credit score
Want to know your score without paying? You can also get that for free from Credit Karma and a site called Credit Sesame. Credit Karma gets its score from TransUnion. Credit Sesame uses Experian.
“It’s not your FICO score, but it’s a darn good replica and it doesn’t cost you a dime,” says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at Smart Credit.com. And he should know. Ulzheimer used to work for the Fair Isaac Corporation, the inventors of the FICO credit scoring system.
If you’re in the market to buy a home, finance a car or apply for a new credit card, you probably should buy your score from FICO because that is the score most lenders use. But if you’re just curious about where you stand, the Credit Sesame or Credit Karma scores are good alternatives.
My two cents
I tried both sites and I like Credit Karma better. You only need to type in the last four digits of your Social Security number. At Credit Sesame you need to provide the entire number. You also need to answer a few marketing questions and provide your annual household income. I didn’t like that.
Note: Federal regulations require a lender to tell you the credit score used if that lender rejects a loan application or offers you a credit card with an interest rate that’s higher than the best rate available.
Free credit report
Under federal law, you have the right to get a free copy of your credit report every 12 months from each of the big three credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Here’s how to do that. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com, the only source authorized by the federal government to provide this service. If you wind up on a site that asks for your credit card number, you’re on the wrong one.
More information
Federal Trade Commission: Free annual credit reports
Some states are working to block companies from checking credit scores of prospective employees. KNSD's Bob Hansen reports.
Leave a Comment:
Which means it is USELESS. You still don't know what is on the report and they are guessing at what your score is. They are trying to promote THEIR new scoring system because the banks have declined to convert from FICO to their system.
Actually its not useless but the author got it all wrong. Credit karma been offering this free service for a good while. Had it for a year with no problems. Its just a basic monitoring service and goes off the transunion credit score. It tells me if anyone is doing a hard credit pull on my credit which comes in handy. Mainly for the credit monitoring not the credit score since there are like 5+ different credit scores.
The provide score is useless.. it isn't FICO and they are the only one who uses this bogus "score"
Actually, there are many more than just 5 credit scores. And the score that you pay for from FICO isn't necessarily the score that your lender sees. The CFPB did a report on it. And this free credit monitoring service is new, not the same that Credit Karma has been offering. They offered it to a limited number of users first, and now it's available to everyone. The difference in this new service is that it will email you when something important changes in your credit report. I've been using it for a while in beta and, when I applied for a new credit card, I received an email about the new credit inquiry. Pretty useful for identity theft protection, if you ask me.
Even if you pay to get your FICO score, it isn't the same FICO score that creditors use. You get the consumer score which is different then the business score that a credit card company or dealership uses.
You would think "trust_verify" was one of the credit bureaus.
I just tried Credit Karma after reading this article and I'm impressed. True, the score is not identical to your FICO score, but unless one of the 3 credit bureaus has significantly different data than the other 2, it's probably close enough to FICO for most people's purposes. After all, most of use really just want a general idea -- is my credit poor, fair, good, very good or excellent.
As far as knowing what data each of the 3 credit bureaus has, that's what the annual free credit report is for. Sometimes one of them may have something that's incorrect that could affect your score.
@trust_verify
That's not true at all. I've been using CK for over a year and it gives you pretty detailed information about why your score is what it is.
There are costs involved with maintaining a database of everyone's credit scores - but the real value is to the creditor who is considering giving you a loan and wants to know if you're a good risk or not. They should be the ones paying for the service. Individuals should be allowed to review their credit files at any time, without having to deal with these jokers who provide "monitoring services".
I may be mistaken, but the free annual credit report from the big three doesn't actually give you your score, just all of the other information. I think they ask for a fee in order to get the score. ??
Yep, it's an extra $7.50.
What a great advertisement for this Karma site. Do you just use your journalism degree as toilet paper now? Do you go home at night and just weep profusely and say, "What the heck happened to my career? I have become a shillling 'ho!"
I feel sad for the author of this piece.
annualcreditreport.com is the federally-mandated FREE credit report site. Use it once a year, correct wrong information, but don't obsess about your credit report or score.
The credit SCORE is a piece of Intellectual Property that belongs to the Credit Reporting Agencies (they claim) so is not free. However, you should not obsess about your credit score. If you pay your bills on time and do not take out excessiv debt or lines of credit, your score should be fine.
And you should get out of the mindset that you are "lucky" to get a loan. Borrow less. If you are obsessed about gaming your credit score, then chances are you are borrowing too much.
You are not your credit score. You are not your debts. Stop obsessing about borrowing money and learn to save it. Debt-free is the way to be, and you wil have to be debt-free someday, if you want to retire on any semblence of living standard.
RobertPlattBell: OUTSTANDING post !
Thank you for your sanity !
Bob, or may I call you Richard: You sir, are a pompous A$$
Well guess what? Sooner or later people going to have to rely on their credit score. New employment, car / home loans, auto insurance, etc.... You have a crappy score or limited or no credit history, you are going to get the sh*t end of the stick and will end up paying more. Not everyone can buy a car or a home with cash buddy.
Anyone who really needs to know their score probably doesn't have a good score to begin with.
Robert, it's not as simple as obsessing about your credit score or trying to "game" it. I don't feel like paying to know my score and the last time a lender told me my score was years ago -- the last time I took out a loan.
I get the free annual credit reports every year from all three credit bureaus, mostly to make sure there are no errors. But even someone with an excellent payment history has no way to judge what that means in terms of a credit score. Is it a 700, a 750, an 800 or what? Does it go up or down if I open a new account but don't use it much? How about if I open a new account and use it a lot and pay on time every month?
You might ask why should I care about the score. Well, I might be thinking about refinancing from a 30 year to a 15 year mortgage now that mortgage rates are at record lows. It would be nice to know in advance if my credit is as good as I think it is.
It's great that someone is offering a truly free service where consumers can monitor some version of their credit score, and not just the once a year reports from the 3 bureaus.
You are absolutely correct, Slim; the following is a FAQ answer from the above touted site:
"You will be given an opportunity to purchase a credit score from any of the nationwide credit reporting agencies after you receive your free annual credit report  in from any of them in response to a request made through this website."
Slim-
Yes- it is true. As of now, you generally can get a credit report for free once a year. You have to pay for the credit score- a minimal fee. That might change in the near future- so keep your eye out for that change.
My company suggests if that you pull your credit 3 times a year, once from each company. Pull it from the www.ftc.gov site- (that will lead you to the correct free credit report site). Chose Experian early in the year- Equifax- mid year and Transunion- toward the end of the year. ( Or any order you wish.) No fees for monitoring that way.
Also know that the score that you get will be 40 to 60 points less than when a mortgage company pulls the score.
Hallie Hawkins
Get It Together
That's what I do, but I have no need to know the score. If you take care to pay your bills on time, the score takes care of its self. You can obsess about your score or try to raise it if you keep sending in your bills late or miss payments.
Sounds like a scam.
This appears to be a quick/easy way to see if you are in trouble with your credit and will thus allow you time to figure out what to do, rather than walking into buy a car or something like that and getting slammed. The article readily points out the way the other reporting agencies lure you into paying them money for something that you probably don't need to begin with.
Comon folks! Of course all of the credit bureaus are scams. Why do we need so many different credit agencies? And how is it possible and even legal for each person to have three or four different scores based on the SAME EXACT info? Would we all accept three or four different balances every time we check our savings account? How about three or four grades for each test we take in school?
We each should have ONE score and have unlimited and easy access to our credit files since our lives revolve around maintaining a decent score. I wonder how many people have been arbitrarily turned down for a job because their credit score did not measure up? Why do we only get to look at our files ONCE a year for free? And why do we only get a copy of our credit files and credit score AFTER we were turned down for a loan, CC, or job? Shouldn't we have access and an opportunity to address issues BEFORE we apply for anything? I totally understand paying a fee for the maintenance of my files and I have no problem paying it once a year but after I pay, I should have unlimited access for that year.
All of our credit scores have been hijacked by these "for profit" agencies.
But my MAJOR PEEVE about all of these credit bureaus is how unforgiving ONE TINY MISSED payment can ruin you for seven years or more even if you have been perfect for the previous 20-30 years. And good luck trying to prove your case if a mistake is found on your reports.
HUH? Posting to the wrong article?
FICO (Financial Influence of Corrupt Oligarchs) is RICO with good PR and window dressing.
Credit Bureau = Big Brother
One great site that you forgat to mention that provides both the credit report and credit score is Quizzle.
FICO Stock is a great investment for those with a long term view. Catch a glimpse of the stock analysis here:
equitycentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/fico-deserves-credit.html