Got burned by a credit monitoring app last week - watch out

I signed up for a free credit tracking app back in March 2023, one of those ones that promise to catch fraud fast. Last Tuesday I got a notification that my score dropped 40 points out of nowhere. Turned out the app had been showing me the wrong model, like the VantageScore instead of FICO 8, for over a year. I only caught it when a lender pulled my real score and denied me for a card. Check what scoring model your app uses before you trust those numbers. Anyone else get blindsided by a misleading credit tracker?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_julia4d ago

That same thing happened to me back in 2021. Signed up for Credit Karma thinking it was the real deal, and for two years I thought my score was around 780. Then I applied for a mortgage and the lender showed me a 720. The app was using VantageScore and my actual FICO was way lower. Those free apps make money by selling you their own credit products, so they have zero incentive to show you the real numbers. They bank on you being confused and signing up for their overpriced cards or loans. I deleted all of them and now just check my FICO directly through my bank's app once a month. It takes two minutes and I'm not playing their game anymore.

barnes.brian3d ago

Nah, Credit Karma’s VantageScore was close enough to my FICO when I checked both around the same time.