How does Credit Karma calculate the credit report score?

Question

I signed up for Credit Karma awhile back and I noticed that they are able to run an inquiry just about any time that I hit "update".

How do they do that, since my understanding is you are only allowed 1 free inquiry per year?
Does their inquiry count as a hard hit or a soft hit?
Will having them monitor my credit score and open accounts negatively affect my credit score?
Is the score that they display just an approximation of the FICO score?

Thanks,

Eric

JTP - Apologise to Monica · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-17 04:37:03Z

7

They have a relationship with Transunion.
Soft. No record of the credit pull on your report.
No
It's supplied by one of the three large scoring agencies. There is no one FICO score, each of the big three will differ a bit.

answered Jul 17, 2012 at 4:37

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6

It should also be noted for #4 that you are not getting your FICO score from Credit Karma, it is TransUnion's "TransRisk" score (and your VantageScore)
– bhamby
Jul 17, 2012 at 17:02
2

True. For what it's worth, when I last refinanced in December, my 3 scores varied 50 points high to low and karma was in the middle nearly dead average of the three.
– JTP - Apologise to Monica ♦
Jul 17, 2012 at 20:52

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