I know car dealers use a auto enhanced formula for credit checks and that credit karma is pretty useless for the purposes of car leasing credit tiers. What do you hackers use to check your own credit score and confirm top tier qualification?
Follow up question…is there a point in which too many leases on a credit report can start disqualifying a person from top tier credit?
Thanks!
Credit Karma isn’t useless. The website never promises an exact credit score and is more along the lines of the a generic “based on what we see, this is where we would ballpark your credit score.” It’s meant to be a tool to help people see the general health of their credit. If you’re THAT concerned that, for some reason, you think your FICO 8 score is going to be wildly different from your credit karma score, you can pay to get your exact FICO 8 score. Some credit card companies offer it as a perk for their cardmembers (American Express has free Experian scores, while Bank of America has free TransUnion scores).
From what I’ve seen, too many leases will start bumping you from the top tier if TransUnion / Experian deem that the amount of debt you have is too high for your income.
And neither are tits on a boar.
My credit Karma score is over 100 points off from my actual score. I’m sure for some people it’s close but if you really want to know pay for your FICO.
Wells Fargo gives you your Fico 9 score for free.
Just about every lender still uses FICO 8 and even if it was 8 the regular score is not the auto score. Bottom line is if you really want to know where you stand so the dealer doesn’t try to screw you pay for the real score. It’s money well spent.
This! Only place I know that provides Auto Enhanced scores… Credit Karma doesn’t even use the normal FICO scores, so if you wanna see the actual score most dealers pull, it’s worth the small cost.
That’s why it’s useless for purposes of car leasing tiers. You won’t know how far off it is from your FICO 8, let alone your auto enhanced, scores unless you pay to see the real auto enhanced scores and compare. If you’re unsure if you will qualify for top tier, it’s worth the investment to look up your auto enhanced scores.
As far as scores go, yes, Credit Karma is absolutely useless. It’s accurate as far as trade line reporting, balances, late payments, collections, etc., but the score it gives you means nothing, nor does a Credit Karma score correlate in even the slightest way with a FICO score.
That’s because your Credit Karma score is calculated using VantageScore 3.0. It’s not going to be a 1:1 to your FICO but it’ll be close enough that people can make informed decisions about their credit. If that more informed decision is “Gee my credit score is borderline maybe I should pay the money for a FICO report to get the exact score I’d get,” then Credit Karma did its job.
I’m not trying to say you can print out your credit karma score page, take it to a dealership, and demand tier 1 based on that number. How about using our heads and extrapolating on existing data rather than blindly following a single number on a page and then acting shocked because it was calculated using a different formula from the one that the dealership is going to use?
No it won’t. If, by circumstance, your CK and FICO are close to each other, great! Still doesn’t mean anything. Vantage is useless, not to mention Vantage doesn’t have an equivalent Auto Enhanced scoring model. It won’t be 1:1, 2:1, 1:2, 1:1.5619, etc. There is simply no relation.
There is no need to extrapolate on existing data, there is no need to decode or calculate anything. FICO gives you multiple scoring models actually used in lending. CK does not. It’s pretty simple.
My current CK scores are TU 667 and EQ 641. My equivalent FICO 8 scores are TU 757 and EQ 733. So tell me, what are CK scores doing for anyone, other than misleading them?
Not trying to knock CK or your use of it, if you want to use their numbers as a ballpark estimate, go for it.
I really liked FreeCreditReport.com by Experian. You only get the Fico 8 for free, but your auto score is typically higher than a Fico 8 I think. It has a great score simulator where you can adjust your credit balances, add/remove lines of credit, etc. and see what affect that has on your score.
I think anything below 720 starts to drop you below tier 1 credit.
Experian has a free app that allows you to see your score based on their records. It’ll update you if any changes occur, any inquiries you didn’t authorize, or anything else that may affect it. You can pay to see Transunion through the app, as well. Pretty useful because you can see how your credit usage changes your score or at least be able to monitor it as much as you want.
PSA: Toilet cleaner isn’t a good substitute for salad dressing either.
This would be completely related to how auto trade lines are handled. Have a late pay on an auto, it won’t be higher than Fico 8
FICO 8s go to 850. Auto-enhanced FICO 8s go to 900.
As such, it’s common for people’s auto-enhanced scores to be higher even though certain factors are weighted differently.