NYmetsfan111

My credit karma score went from 758 to 701 in a matter of a week. I have only applied for the Chase SW and the 2 Citi AA cards (8/6/11) which aren't from Transunion. I was thinking about applying for another card until I saw this today. It is also telling me that I have an outstanding balance of $3,000 which I can't edit myself since it was from using the Citi AA cards to meet the minimum spends. I already paid both of those cards in full before getting the next statement.

Is it because of the outstanding balance that my score has dropped 57 points and if so how long does it take for Credit Karma to update that I already paid all the balances?

Should I hold back from applying for a credit card until it is cleared up?

Thanks!

FT_Reader

Credit Karma is not a FICO credit score. The score you get from Credit Karma is only from TransUnion which is only one of the big three.

The FICO score is what matters to creditors and what they see when they pull your credit. A change in CK score does not mean anything other than....uhm...actually it means nothing as far as your credit score goes. Scores from CK are good for, again, nothing. Okay, maybe just a general idea of what your score might be. I have heard of people receiving the exact score from FICO and CK, but I have also heard of CK scores being over 100 points off.

Pay no attention to CK. If you want your real Equifax or TransUnion scores, go to MyFICO.com.

LongviewTX

Well, to elaborate on this helpful explanation a little bit, whatever score you get on myfico.com is also likely NOT what your bank will use. Except for one of myfico's most expensive products, the score you will buy from myfico.com will be based on either your Equifax or TransUnion credit reports. But if your lender runs your Experian report, your bank may very well see a fairly different number.

That being said, myfico's TransUnion-based credit score is certainly a much better projection of what your bank will see than creditkarma's TransUnion-based credit score.

pinniped

Dumb question: why would one website's Transunion-based score be different than another website's Transunion-based score?

I get why Equifax would be different from Transunion...although I wouldn't expect them to be *much* different.

LongviewTX

Because FICO formula is secret and get results from official "keeper" of the formula is quite expensive. However there is a number of "approximation" formulas developed that are used by multiple web-sites. In some cases these approximations are close to official FICO score in some cases they are not.

myfico.com is owned by the official keeper of the secret formula while creditkarma.com is not.

Happy

Because myfico simply does not use creditkarma which seems at best a scare tactic to make people purchase TU's services.

TheManofaThousandPlaces

I will give 10,000 SkyPesos to anyone that can get me a copy of FICO's formula.

offtheglass

Sure, the CK is not fico, but 57 drop is a strange thing to me too. I'd pull a report to see if there any change with balance or new account that you're not aware of.

LongviewTX

Sorry forgot to address your second point about how close is Equifax-based credit score to that based on TransUnion. Well, actually they are as close as two credit reports contain the same information - if information is identical credit scores are identical as well. However this is what produces vast differences: (1) hard inquires on one report not on the other (2) the same debt reported differently - a real life example is an investment property mortgage is reported as "Real Estate" in one credit reports while "Other installment" on the other - while primary residence mortgage is "Real Estate" on both reports (3) one report containing correct credit limits information while the other omitting it - have a huge impact on credit utilization calculation (4) when a mortgage is refinanced one credit bureau reports is as a closure of an old mortgage and opening of a brand new mortgage while the other may report is as a continuation of the existing mortgage only with changing lender - and you quickly have a different average account age .....

In some cases these differences don't impact the result as much but in some cases they quickly add up.

FT_Reader

That is not correct. I used to have three monitoring services (one was the ScoreWatch which gives a FICO score) and each one reacted differently to the same change. In one instance, one went up, the other went down, and third, yes you guessed right, did not change.

FYI, I still have a CK account (because they will not let you delete it ) but I do not worry about their score one bit.

FT_Reader

Thanks, I just did not want to confuse the OP. Actually there are Auto-enhanced scores as well as Mortgage-enhanced FICO scores. For instance, Mortage lenders care the most about inquiries in the last 90 days.

pinniped

My biggest problem with CK is that it's simply missing a ton of active accounts. Nothing negative...it's just missing stuff. Real credit cards that we use regularly.

FT_Reader

Huh? To which version of CK are you subscribed?

The information on CK is as good as your TU credit report. Your biggest problem with CK should be that you have a problem with them in the first place. You really should not care about it at all, it is worthless.

CKKen

I'm a long time Flyertalk user but this is a throw away account. If you have 3 credit inquiries within a relative short period of time, you can expect a large drop like this. The inquiries are designed to identify desperate/high risk people. If you are asking many people for credit, it is a big red flag. I realize you might be doing it for points but the credit reports & bureaus don't know.

As for how these inquires reach TU, almost all major credit card companies will use all three credit bureaus. Many have logic in how to pull data.

Hope this helps.

K Lin
Founder, Credit Karma, Inc.

CKKen

This is probably the number one myth about credit scores. There is no one true credit score. Each consumer has dozens of scores. It's up to the bank to decide which score it wants to use. FICO is the most widely used but they are not the only one. And even with FICO, they have different scores. So even if you buy from them, the bank might be using another score.

You might think I am biased so here is quote from the Dodd-Frank initiation research from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:

"A consumer, unaware of the variety of credit scores available in the marketplace, may purchase a score believing it to be his or her “true” (or only) credit score, when in fact there is no such single score."

Source: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/wp-co...editScores.pdf