Many people have come to realize that your credit score can be quite important to save money when you are trying to get certain types of loans. A good credit score can mean paying thousands of dollars less in interest than a poor score. For this reason, many people want to keep an eye on their score when they are about to take out a home mortgage or get a car loan. Some people feel it’s important to keep an eye on the score to make sure that nothing unusual is taking place in their credit reports. Whatever the reason, more and more people are looking for ways to obtain free credit scores.
If you want to get your score directly from FICO, it’s going to cost you about $20. Seeing this as an opportunity, a number of websites have begun to offer free credit scores. These include the likes of Credit Karma and Credit Sesame. Another player in this field is Quizzle.
Since Quizzle is not as well-known as Credit Karma and Credit Sesame, the question often arises as to whether or not Quizzle is a scam? People also wonder if it’s a safe and secure website to use? In other words, is Quizzle a scam or a legit website where you can obtain a free credit score? The best way to determine this is to understand how their system works, and exactly what you’re getting when you enter your information into their website.
Quizzle works in basically the same way as both Credit Karma and Credit Sesame, but it uses a different credit reporting agency to generate its score. While Credit Karma uses Transunion data, and Credit Sesame uses Experian data, Quizzle uses data from the third of the main credit reporting agencies; Equifax. Since all three of these sites use data from the different credit reporting agencies, the score that they generate from their data will all be slightly different from one another.
An important factor to note is that Quizzle doesn’t force you to use a credit card as part of the sign-up process in order for you to obtain your free score. Instead of making their money by having you sign-up for credit monitoring services as part of the sign-up process, they are able to generate income by serving you advertisements and through lead generation. For example, while using their website you may get offers to sign up with a new credit card that has a lower interest rate than your current credit card. They may also provide offers to refinance your home at a better rate than you’re currently paying on your mortgage. If you happen to sign up with one of these offers, Quizzle will earn some money because they referred you to the business. This means that Quizzle is using a legitimate business model, and it’s not a scam. Although it is legit, it’s essential that you understand how the business works so that you don’t assume that you’re getting something that you’re not.
The main issue that you need to understand is that the Quizzle score you receive, even though it is based on Equifax data, isn’t your true FICO score. It’s what is often referred to as a FAKO score. What that essentially means is that it’s a score that’s generated by looking at many of the same elements that your true FICO uses, but since it isn’t coming from FICO, the score will not be exactly the same. The score could be slightly higher or lower than your true FICO score. Quizzle recently began using what is called a VantageScore version 3.0 to produce it’s results.
There is a specific reason why Quizzle uses VantageScore version 3.0 to generate a score rather than your true FICO score; it’s significantly less expensive to do so. If they were to give you your FICO score, the business model that they use to generate income wouldn’t work. The FICO score would be too expensive to make it work, so they opt for a score which is much less expensive for them to obtain, but it’s still based on many of the same criteria that go into creating your FICO score.
If the main reason that you want to see your credit score is so that you can track it from month-to-month to monitor if there are any substantial changes to it which may indicate that something has changed in your credit report, then the Quizzle score may be perfectly acceptable. In fact, one of the bonuses that they offer that their main competitors don’t is a free Equifax credit report twice a year in addition to the free score monthly. If, however, you are looking to take out a loan of some type, then you probably want to know what your FICO score is, and not an approximation of it.
Another important factor to keep in mind is that if you do use their site, you’re giving a third-party access to your sensitive financial information in order to get the free score. Any time that you give your financial information out to a third-party website, there is always the chance that there could be security breached, and your information may be exposed to those looking to commit fraud. This is especially important to consider because there are a number of ways that you can obtain a free credit report without giving your financial information to a third-party business.
The good news is that anyone wanting to use Quizzle doed’t have to be worried about it being some type of scam. The company is legitimate, and you’re able to obtain a credit score for free without major catches involved. They will generate a score that is an approximation of your FICO score, but it will likely be slightly higher or lower then your true score. In return, you will be offered advertisements and lead generations, and you must also be willing to give some of your personal financial information to Quizzle.
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