Credit Karma Credit Monitoring Review

Credit Karma made waves when it started offering free credit scores online. At first, many people, including me, were worried that the whole thing was just a big Credit Karma scam. However, after doing some research into whether Credit Karma is legit and even doing an in-depth CreditKarma.com review, I realized that while there may be some concerns over Credit Karma’s accuracy, there is nothing underhanded about the online financial service.

Credit Karma also offers a free online tax filing service. You can find Credit Karma tax reviews here.

Credit Monitoring Scam

This year, Credit Karma is offering its registered users something new. They are expanding beyond their flagship service of offering to show users a free credit score and moving into offering free credit report monitoring.

CreditKarma.com Credit Monitoring

One of the biggest financial scams in America comes courtesy of the credit reporting industry and the three major credit reporting bureaus. In class Mafia-style extortion, a tough looking guy visits a local business. He says that bad things might happen to his business. In order to be safe, he should pay for “protection.” Of course, the only protection the business needs is from the crooks offering the protection. Credit reports and credit reports monitoring work the same way.

The credit bureau’s extortion scheme works exactly the same way. You see, bad things might happen to your credit report. Someone might put false, damaging information in your file. The “smart” thing to do is to check your credit report often. To do that, you have to pay your protection money for a credit monitoring service so that you can be informed when negative information goes on your credit report. Of course, the only thing you need “protection” from is the credit bureaus and their lackadaisical efforts to ensure that only accurate information is on your credit report. Not surprisingly, Transunion, Experian and Equifax all gladly offer high-priced credit monitoring protection.

Unfortunately, just like the Mafia, the credit bureaus aren’t satisfied with just extorting a one-time fee. Instead, they use every trick in the book to get suckers customers to sign up for automatically renewing subscriptions that will charge your credit card or debit your bank account for life, all to “protect” you. You can try calling the credit bureaus, but don’t expect too much.

Free Credit Monitoring from CreditKarma.com

Credit Karma is offering its users a new option. Once signed up for Credit Karma, users can opt-in to a free credit report monitoring service. Every time negative information shows up on your credit report, Credit Karma will send an email alert. Unfortunately, at that point, the only thing you can do is order a copy of your credit report from the credit bureaus. If you are lucky, then you can get your government mandated free annual credit report.

If you already looked at in the past year, however, you will have to pay money in order to get your report, get bombarded with offers for free-trials that are actually auto-renewing subscriptions to expensive services, and then find the negative credit info in your report. Credit Karma has nothing to do with that part of the industry and it certainly isn’t their fault. Hopefully, the trend toward more accessible free credit information will continue. In the meantime, the credit industries high-paid lobbyists will ensure that other than that one free report each year, that you pay through the nose to keep financial companies from lying about you.

Fortunately, Credit Karma allows you the peace of mind of not having to pay every month, or every year, for a credit report monitoring subscription. By checking your free credit score number regularly and signing up for the CreditKarma.com free credit report alerts, you should be able to detect when something is going wrong. You’ll have to pay to find out exactly what and then to fix it, but at least you won’t be wasting money buying credit reports or paying fees when there are no issues with your credit.

17 thoughts on “Credit Karma Credit Monitoring Review”

  1. Is it true that your credit score actually drops with each subsiquent credit check by companies? Is this the case when Credit Kharma provides the number? Or each time I check my score?

    Reply
    • There are two types of credit checks. There is a “hard” pull and a “soft” pull. Essentially it is the difference between actually evaluating your credit to determine whether to give you some form of loan, or a “just looking” type pull. The former affects your credit, the latter does not. The type of pull Credit Karma makes is the soft pull, so it should not affect your credit score.

      Reply
  2. I signed up to get my credit report at credit karma & I was asked for my credit card for a 7 day free trail and I could cancel any time, and when I tried to cancel using the number that was on your sight, I tried the number, ( 855-506-9167, and it would never go through. I want to cancel now 08-14-2016 so please cancel my membership immediate . Thank you! I look forward for a confirmation back from your company!

    Reply
    • did you ever get it resolved?? I am now going through the same thing. I was told I had until Jan. 17 tomorrow) I have been trying for 5 days now to cancel the membership before they charge my card. No one answers the phone

      Reply
  3. I’m very untrusting of Credit Karma – and Transunion. Credit Karma allowed someone else to open an account with my information. They absolutely REFUSED to close the account even though I gave them every bit of information they needed to confirm MY identity and the person’s name who stole my identity. It took several emails, (no phone contact could be established), to get them to CLOSE THE DAMN ACCOUNT AND STOP GIVING THE PERSON MY INFOMATION! THEN, THEY PENALIZED ME FOR 6 MONTHS!!!!! And, when I obtained my reports from the 3 reporting agencies, TRANSUNION GAVE HER MY INFORMATION TOO!!!!!! The other 2 did not. So, enter at your own risk. I wished to hell I could have hired a lawyer!!!! The woman they were givning my info to had already been convicted of FRAUD and ID THEFT!!! I gave them all of her information including HER LAST NAME IN THE EMAIL ADDRESS SHE USED TO ESTABLISH THE ACCOUNT!, her address which is in a different state, everything. It was ridiculous. How did I find out???!! I went to open a Credit Karma account and was immediatly blocked from doing so saying that I was trying to get into someone elses account.

    Reply
  4. I was impressed with credit karma yesterday March 8, 2015.
    They notified me of a new hard inquiry on my credit report. They also advised me that it would remain on my credit report for2 years. The inquiry was dated February 2, 2013.
    I guess it would have dropped off by now but who knows. Have e-mail them twice but no answer. Can’t imagine why they aren’t responding.

    Reply
  5. I signed up today and it worked great…no charge..FREE. I can’t wait to see how my scores go up after I have paid off my credit cards.

    Reply
  6. I went to credit karma web site and went through the steps to get my credit score and near the last step they did ask for a credit card number and $1.00 before I could move on to the last step to receive my score. What a bunch of BS.

    Reply
  7. After all your reviews and your writers saying don’t fall for the credit bureau’s scam of high priced automatic renewing monthly charges you have and ad for the very Equifax credit monitoring you warn against!!!!!
    That puts the accuracy and honesty of your reviews at serious question…
    You have a vested interest in selling ads for Equifax which discounts your sincerity and the information you imply is in the consumers interest…
    A true double standard and blatant contradiction of your articles…
    You seem as much a scam as those you write about; if you are not a subsidiary of Equifax then stop carrying their or any other credit monitoring ads

    Reply
    • Stephen, this site, like many others, uses Google’s advertising platform. Google sells and serves ads to websites. This works very much like how a TV network sells ads that appear during a TV show. The producers of the show do not choose the ads, the network does. I don’t choose what ads appear, nor do I get anything directly from those advertisers. I get paid by Google when someone clicks or views ads. It is all automatic, powered by the same technology that powers Google’s search engine. It probably would be in Equifax’s best interest to not show their ads on my website since I do advise against them, but that is between them and Google. You may wish to read other article comments where I am accused of being a subsidiary, or otherwise in the pocket, of numerous other companies. I assure you that this site is not big enough for any Fortune 500 company to worry about, bribe, or invest in.

      Reply

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