Intuit Credit Karma
Unlike other credit score sites that charge users or limit the number of times a year they can check their credit score, Credit Karma lets people check their scores as much as they want, free. Users can track their scores over time and talk with others about how to improve them.
Paying attention to your credit rating can save big bucks on loans and determine whether you receive a loan at all. The most fundamental task is to go to the free site AnnualCreditReport.com and check your credit reports for errors.
It's also a good time to improve your credit score. As lenders tighten their criteria in the credit crunch, you'll need at least a 760 on the 300 to 850 point FICO scale to secure most loans or lines of credit. Track your score for free on CreditKarma.com. Pay bills on time, keep old credit cards open, and pay down those balances.
Credit Karma lets people check their credit scores free as often as they want, and track and discuss their progress in improving them.
CreditKarma.com also provides you with a free credit score. The score comes from one of the three major credit-reporting bureaus. The site will also help you monitor your score over time.
That's where a little known start-up, Credit Karma steps in. Unlike the big players, Creditkarma.com provides free credit scores based on advertising rather than a subscription model.
One way to lower the ratio is to spread credit across multiple cards, said Kenneth Lin, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based Credit Karma. "Don't have one card that shows extremely high utilization with others that have zero utilization"
Two real strengths of Credit Karma are that they offer a plethora of statistics that let you know where you stand in a relative sense and they allow you to track your score over time such that you can see trends, and perhaps spot anomalies that might be signal negative information on your credit report. Oh, and one more thing... They're free.
The prospect of obtaining free credit scores was more than a little bit awesome, so I thought it wise to probe deeper to get an understanding of just how Credit Karma pulled it off.
Thanks to the credit crunch, your credit score carries a lot more weight than it used to, especially when you want to land a loan or open a credit card. Credit Karma offers free daily access to your credit score...