Getting Your Credit Score Online

The article below from The Wall Street Journal talks about the 3 different sites they tried and their results.  The 3 sites they tested were Credit.com, CreditKarma.com, and Quizzle.com.  They found all of the sites to give them a good sense of their scores because they all ended up in the same “credit tier.”  Their findings were that although all of the sites were good, AnnualCreditReport.com gives you more specifics and information. 

I have many clients who pull their score through the various sites out there and can’t understand why what I pull as a bank is so much different.  I have discussed this in the past but here it is again:

“There is variation among credit scores, depending on which scoring model is being used and which credit bureau the data are pulled from. Lenders can choose from FICO, the VantageScore—a score developed by the three credit bureaus—or from any one of the credit bureaus’ own scores. Adding to the confusion, lenders can choose from multiple versions of the same scoring model. FICO, for example, recently rolled out its latest version, FICO 08.

To gauge how easy-to-use and accurate the three new sites are, we pulled our credit scores—which may or may not be the actual scores lenders see—and compared the data with information in the credit reports and scores we obtained from AnnualCreditReport.com. (All three sites do a “soft pull” on your credit file, which they pay for, and which doesn’t hurt your score, according to the companies. In other cases, applying for new credit is considered a “hard” query, and can hurt your credit score.)”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704252004574459011384380556.html?mod=rss_PJ_Main