Credit Karma Review

Credit Karma Features

Credit Karma will check two out of the three credit-reporting agencies for any changes to your report, specifically TransUnion and Equifax. The absence of Experian monitoring is a limitation. In our experience, credit protection requires visibility across all three major bureaus. We find it’s easier to catch fraudulent activity that might only appear on one report. The good news is, you’ll get weekly credit reports so you can stay on top of everything.

When you discover errors on your credit report, Credit Karma’s Direct Dispute feature initiates the correction process. We found it easy to launch a request on the platform. It eliminated the hassle of navigating multiple websites or mailing dispute letters. On top of that, Credit Karma will also scan the dark web for the email address associated with your account, plus, they’ll tell you if that email has been involved in any data breach. Looks like I wasn’t so lucky this time…

Oh, no, my email was involved in a breach!

And it’s from the clothing e-commerce website Poshmark, no less! But really, there was no need to worry, as Credit Karma told me exactly how to deal with this breach (for starters, change my password).

Data breaches are becoming more common, with over 3,122 publicly reported breaches affecting millions of records in 2023 alone.1 Unfortunately, companies aren’t always required to notify affected individuals. But with Credit Karma’s identity monitoring, I can know as soon as my information is involved in a breach so that I can take action. They even have email and SMS alerts, which is essential because honestly, this is some pretty urgent information.

Unfortunately, Credit Karma doesn’t offer any paid options that would give you insurance money if your identity is stolen; rather, they can only tell you your credit reports and if your email was in a data breach or the dark web. In this regard, Credit Karma is missing some essential features of an identity monitoring service, which isn’t so surprising considering it’s free. Keep in mind that they also don’t monitor any bank accounts, credit cards, or investment accounts, so as far as identity monitoring goes, this service provides just the basics.

Credit Karma Privacy

To sign up for a Credit Karma account in the first place, you need to put in some personal information such as:

• Name
• Email
• Social Security Number
• Address
• Birthday

This is information I want to keep to myself, so I was curious about what Credit Karma does with my information. Do they encrypt it? Do they sell it to third parties so they can target me with ads? In this day and age, I wouldn’t put it past them!

It turns out that Credit Karma does keep quite a bit of information, from the personal information listed above to device, log and location information. However, the company does not share your credit reports, credit scores, or personal information with unaffiliated third parties, particularly for advertising and marketing. Credit Karma has strict data-sharing boundaries. They use aggregated and anonymized user data to offer personalized financial product recommendations. This is how they make money.

In fact, Credit Karma actually encrypts this information using AES 128-bit encryption. AES 128-bit encryption offers solid protection against current threats. However, we consider AES 256-bit encryption the gold standard. It’s a stronger layer of protection against future quantum computing threats. Another thing to keep in mind is the company’s physical location. Based in San Francisco, California, Credit Karma is subject to the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and 14 Eyes international surveillance alliances. While it’s unlikely, this does mean the that United States government could force Credit Karma to hand over customer data. This is the case with any company based here, of course, which is why it’s so important the Credit Karma encrypts customer data. Thank god for encryption!

Is Credit Karma Free?

Short answer? Yes, Credit Karma is free! As we mentioned earlier, the platform makes money through affiliate partnerships. Credit Karma earns commissions when customers sign up for recommended credit cards, loans, or other financial products. This allows them to offer credit monitoring for free. For example, if your identity is stolen, you don’t get any sort of reimbursement from the company, whereas you probably would if you paid a monthly or yearly subscription elsewhere. So while Credit Karma doesn’t cost anything, it certainly doesn’t provide the full-service identity protection you might be looking for. Still, as a free tool, credit and data breach monitoring are very useful.

Credit Karma Customer Support

Another disadvantage of a free service is the lack of customer support options. If you need help with your identity monitoring, you can only check out the online help center or submit a request to the support team. Unfortunately, there’s no live chat or phone number you can call, which is a bit of a disappointment. We found the response times varied significantly. We got some answers within hours. Others took days or weeks to resolve.

Of course, I don’t just want to go off of my experience, which is why I checked Amazon and Google to see what Credit Karma customers had to say about their support. On Amazon, Credit Karma has a 4.4 rating overall from 218 reviews, but unfortunately, none of them mention customer support. Google, on the other hand, was another story. The company’s San Francisco headquarters has a three-star rating overall from 89 reviews, and out of the 22 reviews that mentioned customer support specifically, they were all negative!

It seems like people shared my complaints about the lack of a phone line. Many also said emails took anywhere from days to months to answer. Google user Sheila McCabe wrote in a recent one-star review,

“Their identity verification is lax and their customer service is a joke. I decided to register for a Credit Karma account only to learn that someone else had already made an account using my personal information. If the thought of some impostor having access to all my information for who knows how long wasn’t bad enough, none of my messages to Credit Karma’s online-only support team have been addressed.”

Clearly, customer support is not Credit Karma’s strong suit.

The Credit Karma App

The Credit Karma app allows you to check your credit and monitor the web for data breaches on the go. Fortunately, it’s highly-rated with a 4.7 from the Google Play store and a 4.8 from the Apple store. Personally, I found the app to be as easy to use as the website, and I like that you can get SMS notifications if you prefer. It’s clear that when it comes to designing a user-friendly experience, Credit Karma knows what they’re doing.

Recap of the Credit Karma Review

We think Credit Karma is a valuable free entry point for credit monitoring. However, it doesn’t replace comprehensive identity protection services. Think of Credit Karma as a credit health thermometer rather than a full medical checkup. Without monitoring of Experian and with no identity theft insurance plans available, this service only skims the surface of identity monitoring. However, I do think it’s a good first step to get the basics of credit and data breach monitoring.

That’s it from me!