How soon can you check your credit score?

[JamalNTam 1]

I'm really interested in finding out what credit score I have so far! How soon would you guys say is possible to check credit scores on the online report things?

[Nancy2015 2]

I'm really interested in finding out what credit score I have so far! How soon would you guys say is possible to check credit scores on the online report things?

How long have you had US credit cards for? Give it at least two months from the time you got your first card - if you try to check your report/score too early, you may get a response that they have no record of you (happend to me).

[athena_ny 1]

I'm really interested in finding out what credit score I have so far! How soon would you guys say is possible to check credit scores on the online report things?

Right away, but right now you won't have one, because you most likely won't have any report on file.

[brtlmj 0]

Wait a month or two to check your credit history.

I recall reading somewhere that you need six months of credit history to get a credit score. I cannot remember the source, though, so I may be completely wrong here.

By the way, you will have to pay to get your credit score. The free reports only include your credit history.

[rebeccajo 14]

And every time credit is run on you, a few points drops off your score.

Might be best to wait until you are actually applying for credit and ask them if you can take a peek.

Edited August 20, 2007 by rebeccajo

[Dan J 277]

And every time credit is run on you, a few points drops off your score.

Might be best to wait until you are actually applying for credit and ask them if you can take a peek.

Checking your own credit report does not count against your score. But banks and other companies checking it will.

[Nancy2015 2]

And every time credit is run on you, a few points drops off your score.

Might be best to wait until you are actually applying for credit and ask them if you can take a peek.

Checking your own credit report does not count against your score. But banks and other companies checking it will.

...but only if they place a "hard" inquiry on your report. It happens every time you apply for credit, and sometimes it even happens when you apply for non-credit accounts (utility companies, bank checking accounts). We just switched from cable to satellite TV, they ran the credit check on me (hubby's credit is very bad, so we got it in my name), and they placed a "hard" inquiry on my report, so my score is going down the drain

[Kajikit 65]

I just got a letter from the bank today offering me a credit card (I've had a few before and just ripped them up because I knew I didn't have any credit history yet) and I was curious so I went and looked up my free credit report from Equifax... I still have no idea what my credit score is because they don't tell you unless you pay them ten bucks for the privilege, but I was a bit surprised to see that our joint credit cards have all shown up on my report, so my credit looks pretty good! I've been in the US for almost three years but we didn't have a credit card until six months ago.

[Nancy2015 2]

I just got a letter from the bank today offering me a credit card (I've had a few before and just ripped them up because I knew I didn't have any credit history yet) and I was curious so I went and looked up my free credit report from Equifax... I still have no idea what my credit score is because they don't tell you unless you pay them ten bucks for the privilege, but I was a bit surprised to see that our joint credit cards have all shown up on my report, so my credit looks pretty good! I've been in the US for almost three years but we didn't have a credit card until six months ago.

Congrats on your credit!! :dance:

Mind you, there are two types of credit scores - FICO and Vantage. If you choose to pay for your score when you pull up your report, chances are you'll get your Vantage score. It was introduced in 2005 by the three credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO, and it is very rarely used by lenders. Vantage score range is 501-990, whereas the traditional FICO score range is 300-850. In my opinion it's better to know your FICO score, cause that's what most lenders use to determine your creditworthiness, so if you're paying money to see your score anyways, I'd recommend to pay for FICO.

Just my 2cents...

[JamalNTam 1]

I just got a letter from the bank today offering me a credit card (I've had a few before and just ripped them up because I knew I didn't have any credit history yet) and I was curious so I went and looked up my free credit report from Equifax... I still have no idea what my credit score is because they don't tell you unless you pay them ten bucks for the privilege, but I was a bit surprised to see that our joint credit cards have all shown up on my report, so my credit looks pretty good! I've been in the US for almost three years but we didn't have a credit card until six months ago.

Congrats on your credit!! :dance:

Mind you, there are two types of credit scores - FICO and Vantage. If you choose to pay for your score when you pull up your report, chances are you'll get your Vantage score. It was introduced in 2005 by the three credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO, and it is very rarely used by lenders. Vantage score range is 501-990, whereas the traditional FICO score range is 300-850. In my opinion it's better to know your FICO score, cause that's what most lenders use to determine your creditworthiness, so if you're paying money to see your score anyways, I'd recommend to pay for FICO.

Just my 2cents...

Jamal uses myfico.com to check his. He had a free trial with BoA and the score for Equifaq was alot less with BoA than myfico. So do lenders look at the myfico one rather than the BoA one?

[Dan J 277]

I just got a letter from the bank today offering me a credit card (I've had a few before and just ripped them up because I knew I didn't have any credit history yet) and I was curious so I went and looked up my free credit report from Equifax... I still have no idea what my credit score is because they don't tell you unless you pay them ten bucks for the privilege, but I was a bit surprised to see that our joint credit cards have all shown up on my report, so my credit looks pretty good! I've been in the US for almost three years but we didn't have a credit card until six months ago.

Congrats on your credit!! :dance:

Mind you, there are two types of credit scores - FICO and Vantage. If you choose to pay for your score when you pull up your report, chances are you'll get your Vantage score. It was introduced in 2005 by the three credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO, and it is very rarely used by lenders. Vantage score range is 501-990, whereas the traditional FICO score range is 300-850. In my opinion it's better to know your FICO score, cause that's what most lenders use to determine your creditworthiness, so if you're paying money to see your score anyways, I'd recommend to pay for FICO.

Just my 2cents...

Jamal uses myfico.com to check his. He had a free trial with BoA and the score for Equifaq was alot less with BoA than myfico. So do lenders look at the myfico one rather than the BoA one?

Not quite, lenders will generally use one or more of the 3 credit reports. The score generated by Transunion, Equifax and Experian may vary a bit. Since they don't necessarily have all lenders using them or reporting to them. For me, one credit report shows no hard hits and has a higher score than the others which have a couple of hits.

Also, depending on the lender, score may be only part of the equation when the decide to give you credit or not. They will likely look at your history and see if you were late on any payments, how many accounts you have open and what the balances are, and other data contained on in the report.

[JamalNTam 1]

I just got a letter from the bank today offering me a credit card (I've had a few before and just ripped them up because I knew I didn't have any credit history yet) and I was curious so I went and looked up my free credit report from Equifax... I still have no idea what my credit score is because they don't tell you unless you pay them ten bucks for the privilege, but I was a bit surprised to see that our joint credit cards have all shown up on my report, so my credit looks pretty good! I've been in the US for almost three years but we didn't have a credit card until six months ago.

Congrats on your credit!! :dance:

Mind you, there are two types of credit scores - FICO and Vantage. If you choose to pay for your score when you pull up your report, chances are you'll get your Vantage score. It was introduced in 2005 by the three credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO, and it is very rarely used by lenders. Vantage score range is 501-990, whereas the traditional FICO score range is 300-850. In my opinion it's better to know your FICO score, cause that's what most lenders use to determine your creditworthiness, so if you're paying money to see your score anyways, I'd recommend to pay for FICO.

Just my 2cents...

Jamal uses myfico.com to check his. He had a free trial with BoA and the score for Equifaq was alot less with BoA than myfico. So do lenders look at the myfico one rather than the BoA one?

Not quite, lenders will generally use one or more of the 3 credit reports. The score generated by Transunion, Equifax and Experian may vary a bit. Since they don't necessarily have all lenders using them or reporting to them. For me, one credit report shows no hard hits and has a higher score than the others which have a couple of hits.

Also, depending on the lender, score may be only part of the equation when the decide to give you credit or not. They will likely look at your history and see if you were late on any payments, how many accounts you have open and what the balances are, and other data contained on in the report.

Yea I get that there are 3 credit agencies, the thing that I dont understand is that myfico shows a score with Equifax that is quite good, but BoA shows a score with Equifax as not very good - so I'm confused how the same credit agency (equifax) is giving 2 different scores to 2 different companies.

[Dan J 277]

I just got a letter from the bank today offering me a credit card (I've had a few before and just ripped them up because I knew I didn't have any credit history yet) and I was curious so I went and looked up my free credit report from Equifax... I still have no idea what my credit score is because they don't tell you unless you pay them ten bucks for the privilege, but I was a bit surprised to see that our joint credit cards have all shown up on my report, so my credit looks pretty good! I've been in the US for almost three years but we didn't have a credit card until six months ago.

Congrats on your credit!! :dance:

Mind you, there are two types of credit scores - FICO and Vantage. If you choose to pay for your score when you pull up your report, chances are you'll get your Vantage score. It was introduced in 2005 by the three credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO, and it is very rarely used by lenders. Vantage score range is 501-990, whereas the traditional FICO score range is 300-850. In my opinion it's better to know your FICO score, cause that's what most lenders use to determine your creditworthiness, so if you're paying money to see your score anyways, I'd recommend to pay for FICO.

Just my 2cents...

Jamal uses myfico.com to check his. He had a free trial with BoA and the score for Equifaq was alot less with BoA than myfico. So do lenders look at the myfico one rather than the BoA one?

Not quite, lenders will generally use one or more of the 3 credit reports. The score generated by Transunion, Equifax and Experian may vary a bit. Since they don't necessarily have all lenders using them or reporting to them. For me, one credit report shows no hard hits and has a higher score than the others which have a couple of hits.

Also, depending on the lender, score may be only part of the equation when the decide to give you credit or not. They will likely look at your history and see if you were late on any payments, how many accounts you have open and what the balances are, and other data contained on in the report.

Yea I get that there are 3 credit agencies, the thing that I dont understand is that myfico shows a score with Equifax that is quite good, but BoA shows a score with Equifax as not very good - so I'm confused how the same credit agency (equifax) is giving 2 different scores to 2 different companies.

Its possible BoA may compute its own score based on credit agencies report. The other possibility may have to do with a difference in time between when you requested each report.

[JamalNTam 1]

I just got a letter from the bank today offering me a credit card (I've had a few before and just ripped them up because I knew I didn't have any credit history yet) and I was curious so I went and looked up my free credit report from Equifax... I still have no idea what my credit score is because they don't tell you unless you pay them ten bucks for the privilege, but I was a bit surprised to see that our joint credit cards have all shown up on my report, so my credit looks pretty good! I've been in the US for almost three years but we didn't have a credit card until six months ago.

Congrats on your credit!! :dance:

Mind you, there are two types of credit scores - FICO and Vantage. If you choose to pay for your score when you pull up your report, chances are you'll get your Vantage score. It was introduced in 2005 by the three credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO, and it is very rarely used by lenders. Vantage score range is 501-990, whereas the traditional FICO score range is 300-850. In my opinion it's better to know your FICO score, cause that's what most lenders use to determine your creditworthiness, so if you're paying money to see your score anyways, I'd recommend to pay for FICO.

Just my 2cents...

Jamal uses myfico.com to check his. He had a free trial with BoA and the score for Equifaq was alot less with BoA than myfico. So do lenders look at the myfico one rather than the BoA one?

Not quite, lenders will generally use one or more of the 3 credit reports. The score generated by Transunion, Equifax and Experian may vary a bit. Since they don't necessarily have all lenders using them or reporting to them. For me, one credit report shows no hard hits and has a higher score than the others which have a couple of hits.

Also, depending on the lender, score may be only part of the equation when the decide to give you credit or not. They will likely look at your history and see if you were late on any payments, how many accounts you have open and what the balances are, and other data contained on in the report.

Yea I get that there are 3 credit agencies, the thing that I dont understand is that myfico shows a score with Equifax that is quite good, but BoA shows a score with Equifax as not very good - so I'm confused how the same credit agency (equifax) is giving 2 different scores to 2 different companies.

Its possible BoA may compute its own score based on credit agencies report. The other possibility may have to do with a difference in time between when you requested each report.

They're online accounts that moniter the score etc 24/7 - so its even more confusing!

[athena_ny 1]

I just got a letter from the bank today offering me a credit card (I've had a few before and just ripped them up because I knew I didn't have any credit history yet) and I was curious so I went and looked up my free credit report from Equifax... I still have no idea what my credit score is because they don't tell you unless you pay them ten bucks for the privilege, but I was a bit surprised to see that our joint credit cards have all shown up on my report, so my credit looks pretty good! I've been in the US for almost three years but we didn't have a credit card until six months ago.

Congrats on your credit!! :dance:

Mind you, there are two types of credit scores - FICO and Vantage. If you choose to pay for your score when you pull up your report, chances are you'll get your Vantage score. It was introduced in 2005 by the three credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO, and it is very rarely used by lenders. Vantage score range is 501-990, whereas the traditional FICO score range is 300-850. In my opinion it's better to know your FICO score, cause that's what most lenders use to determine your creditworthiness, so if you're paying money to see your score anyways, I'd recommend to pay for FICO.

Just my 2cents...

Jamal uses myfico.com to check his. He had a free trial with BoA and the score for Equifaq was alot less with BoA than myfico. So do lenders look at the myfico one rather than the BoA one?

Not quite, lenders will generally use one or more of the 3 credit reports. The score generated by Transunion, Equifax and Experian may vary a bit. Since they don't necessarily have all lenders using them or reporting to them. For me, one credit report shows no hard hits and has a higher score than the others which have a couple of hits.

Also, depending on the lender, score may be only part of the equation when the decide to give you credit or not. They will likely look at your history and see if you were late on any payments, how many accounts you have open and what the balances are, and other data contained on in the report.

Yea I get that there are 3 credit agencies, the thing that I dont understand is that myfico shows a score with Equifax that is quite good, but BoA shows a score with Equifax as not very good - so I'm confused how the same credit agency (equifax) is giving 2 different scores to 2 different companies.

I'm not sure what your definition of 'quite good' is - regardless, stop focusing so much on your credit score. Work on building it, because right now, you've only been here a few months and won't be qualifying for mortgages and car loans etc etc. Be responsible with any cards you have - it's pointless to obsess over a number. Just my advice.