Your credit score is a key piece of your financial status. It's one of the main factors lenders use to determine whether or not you qualify for a loan. Keeping track of that score can be complicated and costly. But, we have found three ways to calculate your score, and they're absolutely free.
The Web site
Credit.com has what's called a Credit Compass. Here you're asked to fill out some basic information about your finances, including how many credit cards you have open and how much money you currently owe. Fill out the form and your estimated credit score will appear in the top right corner of the page. And, you don't have to provide any personal or account information.
Another site,
Creditkarma.com, does ask for some personal information including address, birthday and social security number. With access to your personal data, this site provides an estimated credit score based on information from the Transunion credit bureau.
You can check your score as often as you want and track it over time and since you don't enter any credit card account numbers, you don't have to cancel any offers.
And on
Quizzle.com, your estimated credit score is based on information from the Experian credit bureau. This site will ask for your address and date of birth, not your social security number. And you will answer some security questions to make sure you are who you say you are. The site will generate your score and provides a copy of your Experian credit report.
The information on all of these sites provide is an approximation, not your actual FICO score. But much of the information is based on data from the credit bureaus.
Experts say you should also be checking your credit reports. Federal law says you can access your reports once a year for free from the three major bureaus, Transunion, Equifax, and Experian. The only government authorized site for you to get those free reports is
annualcreditreport.com.
