Credit Karma pays for its credit reporting through advertiser supported deals, some of which might actually appeal to the consumer who is pulling his or her scores.
Unlike Freecreditreport.com and other similar services, there are no trial periods and hidden fees that you’ll have to pay down the road. Credit Karma is completely free. You can pull your credit score whenever you want and it doesn’t cost you anything (except ad views). Nor does it affect your credit score.
I use MyFico.com because I discovered it prior to being made aware of Credit Karma by founder Kenneth Lin. His site says:
Our services start with a FREE credit score. No credit card is required and no strings are attached. Return as often as you like and use our service to track your credit file and stay informed. Credit Karma believes this is a fundamental consumer right. Credit Karma will continue to provide these FREE credit scores while doing the most to protect your privacy regardless if you use our other services.
When you access the FREE credit score, Credit Karma will show personalized offers to you based on your credit profile . These offers are from advertisers who share our vision of consumer empowerment. If you wish to take advantage of Karma Offers, it is up to you. Credit Karma will never share your information without your consent.
Mr. Lin blogs on Credit Karma, and it was through his blog entries that I found out about another useful service. CheckingFinder lets you search by zip code for the closest high yield checking account.
As the dollar continues to slide in value, smart consumers are going to be looking for every opportunity to save money that they can find. Higher interest rates for your own banking accounts, and better credit resulting in lower interest rates on your credit cards are both significant ways to beat the economic downturn.
Credit Karma is a great way to beat the credit scoring fee scammers who hurt people that may already be struggling with a less than perfect credit score by charging them outrageous amounts to keep track of their credit score.
Credit Karma doesn’t necessarily report your exact credit score per Transunion, Experian or Equifax. Rather, it uses a proprietary technology to average the three scores – with fairly accurate results. I have a number of friends and relatives try the service and all of them said that Credit Karma was very accurate.