Getting Your Credit Scores

The most important step in improving your credit scores is getting, reviewing, and correcting errors in your credit reports.  If you want to know your scores, you can:

Opt for a free score.  But remember, these are not the scores that will be used to make decisions about you.  You can use these scores to generally track whether your scores are going up or going down.

• Credit Karma  
• Credit Sesame
• Quizzle

Order your FICO score.

• You can do this by visiting: http://www.myfico.com/Products/Products.aspx
• Be aware that they sell subscription services for credit monitoring purposes and one-time purchases of your scores.  Read carefully what you are buying.
• Also, remember that even though you are buying a FICO score(s), the one used by someone making a decision about you could be different.

Get your VantageScore.

There are multiple free providers of VantageScore, but be sure to read the fine print before subscribing to any services.  Remember when something is free, you are the product.  So, you will either be providing data or subjected to the promotion of debt creating products and services to “help” build your scores.

• Credit.com
• Wallet Hub

Wait until you have a regulatory right to your scores:

• If you have had an adverse action, and the decision was made in part or because of your credit score.  You have the right to see the score used.
• If you have been given less favorable terms than other borrowers because the lender uses risk-based pricing.  You have the right to request the score used.
• If you apply for a mortgage.

A recent study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that “different scoring models place consumers in the same credit-quality category 73-80% of the time.”  This means that no matter what score you get, it will likely be in the same ballpark as any other score 7-8 out of 10 times.

If you want to see how your score is changing, be sure to periodically get the same score.  Comparing two different scores will not help you see changes.