CredditKarma

This is a very fair and important question. When we pull credit, we are able to determine how much you are currently paying for your loans. When we see an opportunity for you to save money, we will point it out.

If you take advantage of that opportunity, we should make money, you should save money, and the bank should get a new customer. The loser in the equation was that bank that was charging too much.

The most important part is that you are under no obligation to click or use any of the offers. Many users don't. And I suspect many of you have ad-block. That is okay. We are as mission driven around education and access as we are a for-profit business.

Also let me point out that we don't make money by selling your information. It is against our privacy policy and we hate those tactics as much as you do.

Absolutely, we don't ask for a credit card and there are no hidden fees. We have over 30 million users many of whom are Redditors including myself.

The first part is looking. Many consumers still don't access their report or score until they use it. This is a problem. Reports have errors and consumers need to be proactive about fixing it.

Once you take that first step, I would suggest reducing debt and hard inquiries. The first part is not always solvable. You can only reduce debt when you have the funds. The second part is a common mistake. People apply for everything under the sun when they need money. This creates many hard inquiries which further lowers your score. Find the right product by doing research before you apply.

First there is no one actual score. As long a lender is using the model, it is a real score. There are hundreds of scores in use. Banks decide which bureau and which scoring algorithm to use based on cost and accuracy.

Credit Karma can't buy all the score as a matter of fact all of the scores are not for sale. We try to put out a representative sample. That is why we had TransRisk and Vantage that we purchased directly through the bureaus with no adjustments. I think more times people with big discrepancies will post and complain (which I understand). The data says that by and large credit scoring models are highly correlated.

Ninja Edit for Typo

It is a good thing. I think we can all empathize with how uncontrollable medical situations are. The fact that something so random could destroy your financial well being is terrifying to me.