MyFico

[+ GregM]

I came across MyFico from a YouTube video this afternoon. It seems kind of complicated from what I saw from the video. Can any bankers or financial people vouche for it's usefulness? Is it better than Credit Karma or Experian? MyFico charges almost $30 a month for monitoring.

 

Hugs,

Greg

[rvwnsd]

I came across MyFico from a YouTube video this afternoon. It seems kind of complicated from what I saw from the video. Can any bankers or financial people vouche for it's usefulness? Is it better than Credit Karma or Experian? MyFico charges almost $30 a month for monitoring.

 

Hugs,

Greg

Having worked in retail banking for 30+ years, I've seen a number of credit monitoring services pop up from time to time. If you are going to pay for a credit monitoring service, then myFICO is one I'd recommend as it is independent of a credit bureau or a lender. They also provide your FICO score, which the products offered by the credit bureaus do not offer. The credit bureau products provide an "educational" score, similar to the ones CreditKarma provides, which are similar to FICO scores but not the same as FICO scores. Lenders use FICO scores to decision credit applications.

 

I used myFICO several years ago and thought it had some cool features, such as:

• Simulation: You could see an estimate of your credit score if you reduced debt by "x" amount or increased it by "y" amount
  
• Your actual FICO 8 score: CreditKarma and the credit bureaus display an "educational" credit score, which is close to but not the same as the FICO score. that's because the FICO models are proprietary to Fair-Isaac (The "F" and "I" of "FICO")
  
• A side-by-side of your credit bureau reports: Exactly what it says : All three bureaus' reports side-by-side.
  

However, to receive a monthly update is $39.95/month. The $29.95/month plan gives you quarterly updates.

 

It really depends on what you are looking for from a service. If you want a general picture of your credit health and alerts to when your credit reports are accessed, CreditKarma is adequate, even though it only displays scores from two of the three major bureaus (TransUnion and Equifax - it does not report on Experian). If you want tools like simulation and your actual FICO score, then I'd go with myFICO. I would not recommend paying for the credit bureaus' own services because they essentially deliver what you can get for free by doing a little legwork.

 

Hope this helps.

 

**EDIT: Clarified that the credit bureau products don't provide a FICO score. The original wording might mislead one into believing I was referring to myFICO. Apologies for any confusion.

Edited June 9, 2020 by rvwnsd