wealthJUMP.com

So a couple years ago, I filed bankruptcy. I was way past where I could have recovered from it, but didn’t have a whole lot of information on how I could have recovered from it anyway. That’s part of the reasoning for starting this site. Over these past couple of years I have been working on recovering my credit score. Part of that task is watching your credit report very carefully. So I started looking for a site that updates that information every month.

About a year and a half ago, I subscribed to the site mycreditkeeper.com - it was the only site that I could find that allowed me to check my actual full report every month. A lot of my research relied on watching what my credit score did and how each account was updated/added to that report.

Functionality:

mycreditkeeper.com is relatively easy to use. You sign up for an account with all of your pertinent information (including SSN#) and then order your 3 bureau report. The report is easy to maneuver around to read and compare the 3 different bureaus. “Reordering” the report every month is strange, because it asks you for your credit card information everytime. In small print it says you don’t have to enter it, and it’s not charged every month, but it asks for it anyway.

Accuracy:

For these last couple of years, I had been attempting to get my credit to a specific bracket in order to get an average rate for a mortgage. That was one of the big reasons for getting my report every month. A few months back, I started working with a mortgage broker, who pulled my credit. Now, I thought I knew exactly where I was I had pulled the report from mycreditkeeper.com the day before. In fact, I made it a point of telling him in advance exactly what my credit score was the day before. I knew that I hadn’t spent any money on credit and had made all of my payments on time. I assumed that my score would be higher than what I knew. Well when he pulled the report, my score was at a average of about 22 points lower. Now that’s the difference between getting approved for a loan and getting a terrible loan.

So I was jonesing for a reason from mycreditkeeper on why they were telling me my credit was so high and why my mortgage broker saw something different. I sent them an email:

Original Message Follows:
————————

I have recently had my credit pulled for a mortgage, over the past year
I have been paying for your service to monitor when my score reached a
certain point. I passed that mark this last month according to your
system. My credit score was pulled the day after I renewed it with your
service and my mid score is off by 19 points. I verified another service
and my credit score matched the same as the scores my broker pulled.

I’d like to have an explanation on why the scores are off by that much and also be
reimbursed for at least the last month of service that I paid for.
Without an acceptable reason for the inaccuracy, I will be forced to
cancel this service.
————————

A few days later, I received this:

Original Reply Follows:
———————-
Dear [me],

Thank you for taking the time to email us at CreditKeeper.

I am sorry for any inconvenience experienced regarding the credit score
you have received from us. Please be advised that the credit score from
credit bureaus is known as a FICO score, while ours is not. The
difference in the scores is how they are calculated. Our score is
calculated by a wide range of information that looks at the last year
and a half of activity of your information, whereas the FICO score is
generally calculated by the last 6 months of activity. Most likely
these scores will be similar.

If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact
our office by email at anytime.

Thank you,

Karen, Your CreditKeeper Representative.
———————-

No, thank you, Karen.

While mycreditkeeper.com advertises that you get your credit score - that score is not your FICO score. They don’t call it a FICO score, but they say very specifically that the score is calculated from your credit report. Well, so is your FICO score. The scores generated from mycreditkeeper.com for me were way wrong. Your mileage may vary - but I’d steer clear of this one.

Got a financial site that you’d like to see reviewed? Send in an email to info@wealthjump.com with the address.