Guy at a pawn shop told me my score was a lie and I should ignore Credit Karma

3 comments

3 Comments

Oh man, my buddy had almost the same thing happen... He went to buy a used car and the dealer pulled his actual score and it was like 80 points lower than what Credit Karma showed. He'd been planning his whole budget around that higher number and had to scramble for a different loan. Totally threw him off his game for like a week. So yeah, I'd take that pawn shop guy's warning seriously.

charles_young921mo ago

Take that pawn shop guy's advice seriously but don't completely write off Credit Karma either. It's good for tracking trends and checking for new accounts opened in your name, but yeah the actual numbers can be off by a decent amount. The score model Credit Karma uses is different from what most lenders pull, that's the real issue here. Your buddy should have asked the dealer to run a soft pull first instead of going in blind. Always check the actual FICO score before making any big money moves.

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sean8541mo ago

Yeah man exactly! I had the same rude awakening last year when I went to refinance my house. Credit Karma said I was sitting at 740 but the lender pulled my mortgage FICO and it was 680. That's a huge swing. I was already talking to them about rates and felt like a complete jackass when they came back with a worse offer. Now I just use Credit Karma to make sure nobody opened a card in my name and that's about it. That's the only thing it's really good for.