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Credit Karma Free Credit Score Monitoring Service, Dividend Reinvestment at TradeKing, and Delivery of My Silver Coins

Posted by Sun on January 29, 2008
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Nowadays, you can get a lot of stuff for free, news, music, movie, as long as you read/listen to/watch the ads that come together with the free stuff. You can even monitor your credit score for free, says CreditKarma.com, a newly launched credit monitoring service that promise free access to their own version of credit score for everybody.

You may be curious why Credit Karma can afford to provide a service for free when everybody else in the same business is charging a monthly fee (check out available credit monitoring services). After a quick review of Credit Karma website, I found the follow on their FAQ page:

Our free credit scores are sponsored by partners who share our vision that consumers should have free and regular access to their score.

That’s why. I wonder how long this kind of free service can last though if the sponsors don’t get what they expect from users of Credit Karma.

BTW, the Credit Karma score is different from FICO score, or any score from other credit agencies. It has a range from 300 to 900. In my opinion, the absolute number itself is not important. What’s important is the score’s relative position in the score range.

Last week, I was frustrated by the process to set up dividend reinvestment at Zecco. It seems that dividend reinvestment is not automatic at every broker. I checked my TradeKing account and didn’t find that option either. When I contacted TradeKing via Live Chat, I was told that I have to request a DRIP program, either for the entire account or a particular security. While it wasn’t as straightforward as I expected, TradeKing did help me set up the DRIP for my account over Live Chat without requiring any extra document.

american eagle silver coinBTW, TradeKing offers fractional share purchase with dividend distributions, unlike Zecco which insists only whole shares can be purchased with dividends.

Finally, I requested a delivery of a few silver coins I bought last year from Bullion Direct. When I made the purchase last May, the price of an American Eagle Silver Coin was $14.37 and a Canadian Maple Leaf Silver Coin was $13.82. The American Eagle is currently priced at $18.32. The reason I didn’t ask for shipment when I bought the coins is the shipping and handling cost was almost equivalent to a coin. It doesn’t make sense to pay 100%, 50% or even 20% of the total value of the shipment on S&H. So I wait until I accumulated enough coins to make the shipping cost worth it.

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13 Comments
January 29, 2008

Great post!! Your FICO credit score is a numerical score derived from your financial activity over the life of your credit history. FICO credit scores change frequently with new activity in your credit report. It can range from a score of 300 to 850, with 850 considered excellent and 300 considered very bad credit. The better your fico score, the more likely you will get the loan.

Posted by Marlon
January 30, 2008

My biggest fear with this type of company is what if this new business model doesn’t work out and they fire sale. What happens to my information?

Posted by Jeremy
January 30, 2008

Ive been seeing a lot of info on CreditKarma on some real high profile blogs lately. Their service sounds like it would be great to the consumer, but like Jeremy, Im also worried about what might happen in the future if they start getting really big. I’d be interested in knowing more about them and featuring them on my own Credit Report site.

Nick

Posted by Free Annual Credit Reports
January 31, 2008

Yes, I agree with the S&H philosophy. Accumulate enough, why waste on S&H ? My advisor’s made a load of money on silver. He’s writing on silver and gold at http://getricheasily.blogspot.com and some others. I got a booklet of his free at http://www.lulu.com/content/1355753 -it’s good , though I didn’t get the same returns on silver.

Posted by Leila Trescothick
June 5, 2008

I signed up for CreditKarma and pretty found the service useless. Sure it gives your TransUnion score, but it’s not even close to my FICO score which is what most lenders use. If I remember correctly my Karma score was high 800’s, and my FICO is nearly 800. I’d rather pay myfico.com and get my actual FICO score.

Posted by Jake the Credit Junkie
January 6, 2009

I think the Credit Karma site is good reading at the very least. You still need to use some common sense on what you are going to take away from the site.

Posted by Choice Personal Loans
March 18, 2009

I have seen many sites before and most of them do not look this good.
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