FAQ’s

Your credit history is essentially a record of how you’ve used credit. This record plays a major role in determining your credit scores and is used by lenders to get a sense of the way you’ve handled your money and credit obligations over time. Depending on how you’ve used credit in the past, your credit history may include …

• The number of credit cards and loans you have
• The number of payments you’ve made on time or late
• How long you’ve had open credit accounts and whether they’re in good standing

Lenders may use the credit history information found in your credit reports to decide if they’ll approve you for a financial product, such as a loan or credit card account. And depending on your state, potential employers, insurance companies and rental property owners may also look at your credit reports, so it’s important to understand what information your reports include and how it’s presented.

Your credit reports essentially break down into two main components: Your personal information and a record of your credit history. Personal information can include your name, address and Social Security number. Your credit history, as noted above, includes information about how you use and manage credit.

Here’s a rundown of the major credit history aspects to look out for on your credit reports.

• Credit account information — For each of your credit accounts, your credit reports may include information about your payment history, your loan amount or credit limit, your current account balance, and the age of the account.
• Credit inquiries — There are two types of credit inquiries that might show up on your credit reports: Hard inquiries (also known as “hard pulls” or “hard credit checks”) typically occur when you apply for credit, and they can negatively affect your credit scores. Soft inquiries (also known as “soft pulls” or “soft credit checks”) can occur when you check your own credit, and they don’t affect your credit scores. Soft inquiries may or may not end up on your reports.
• Public records — These may include derogatory marks on your credit reports, such as accounts in collections, late payments and bankruptcies. These types of public records can cause significant long-term damage to your credit scores.

Your credit scores are different from your credit reports, but they’re closely related. Each of your credit scores is a three-digit number calculated using the information in your credit reports — including many aspects of your credit history.

There are many different types of credit scores, but most of them have a few things in common. For example, most credit scores range from 300 to 850, and where your score falls in this range helps lenders determine how likely you are to pay back your loans.

Credit scores that depend on different credit-scoring models will still account for similar information.

No. While a credit card can help you establish credit history, other types of accounts — such as student loans, credit-builder loans or services that report your rent payments to the credit bureaus — can help you build credit.

A good credit history typically shows that you’ve made payments on time and don’t use too much of your available credit. While different lenders have different standards for what qualifies as a good credit score, scores starting in the high 600s and up to the mid-700s (on a scale of 300 to 850) are generally considered to be good.

While your credit reports from the three major consumer credit bureaus likely contain similar information, they may not be exactly the same. All of your credit information may not be reported to all three bureaus, or it may be reported at different times. Keep in mind that credit bureaus can also display the same information in different ways.

Yes! Credit Karma offers free access to your credit reports and VantageScore 3.0 credit scores from Equifax and TransUnion. We’ll also show you items in your credit history that could be impacting your scores, and help you monitor your credit for signs of errors or inconsistencies. Your scores and reports can be updated weekly, so you can track how your credit history changes and impacts your scores over time.

Our team will help consumers to raise a dispute and correct any incorrect information held about them on their credit file.

By making it easy to see what the biggest influencers on a credit score are, your customers can understand what they are doing well and what they can improve.

Previous scores are recorded on a score history graph, to provide a clear idea of where they’ve been and a better understanding of credit as an ever-changing thing, not a fixed metric

The ability to review a refreshed score every 28 days makes this our most popular feature  with consumers and is proven to drive regular engagement

Your customers can see the key metrics affecting their credit profile; things like the number of judgments, short and long-term debt balance, presence on the register.

Consumers can understand what affects their Credit Score by running different credit scenarios, such as understanding the impact of a missed payment or adding a new credit.