Technically this is more of a /c/finance type beat, but since it’s important info for all US Americans I figured I’d post here to reach more people.

Anyway, the credit score Credit Karma and some banks like Capital One give uses the VantageScore 3.0 model. The problem is that no lender, rental management company, or institution of substance actually uses it, and it can be off by 60 points or more from the one that they actually do use–your FICO score, with FICO 8 being the most commonly used score. Thankfully, you can see it for free using the below methods, differing on which Credit Bureau’s score you’d like to see. They should all be within a few points of each other, but it never hurts to check.

  • Experian: Sign up through experian.com. You can also pay an exorbitant monthly fee to see all three bureau’s scores, or just use the 7 day free trial.

  • Equifax: Sign up through myfico.com.

  • TransUnion: The trickiest one–I think the only “free option” that isn’t a complimentary feature from a credit card is the 7 day free trial from Experian.

Thanks to this I found out my credit score is actually ~20 points higher than what Credit Karma said it was. For my mom, it was ~50 points higher! That opens up a lot of doors for her in terms of balance transfers and CC debt consolidation.

Shoutout to Amerikkka for having this dumbshit system clown

  • RION [she/her]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    If it says it’s a FICO 8 from XYZ bureau then it should be the same as getting it through one of those sites.

    Otherwise it could be one of the like 30 different FICO scores (FICO 9, FICO Bankcard 8/9, FICO Auto Score 8/9, and such) which see varying levels of use—Citi, as I found out the other day, uses FICO Bankcard 8 in its credit card applications and complimentary score reporting.