With the likely changes in credit availability resulting from the new credit card reform legislation, lenders will be exploring more creative methods in marketing their financial products to lower risk consumers. How does one go about finding out how lenders determine their at risk factors? The web based Credit Karma Inc., provides a twist in the financial product marketing business by offering consumers free access to their credit score. Credit Karma then provides the consumer personalized offers from their advertisers for credit cards and other financial products based on the consumer's credit profile. Although the site asks consumers to reveal personal information such as date ! of birth and social security numbers, Credit Karma will not share the information with any of its advertisers without the consent of the consumer. Unlike traditional marketing methods of selling consumer information to companies, consumers decides who will get their information and which credit card offer or other financial opportunities they wish to take advantage of.
According to Ken Lin, the CEO and founder of Credit Karma, consumers are not savvy in reading and understanding all the components involved in their credit report. The report itself consists of more than the consumer's credit score and a listing of his credit cards, loans, and mor! tgage; it also comes with 8 to 12 pag! es of mi scellaneous information. The everyday consumer has little knowledge on how to decipher the information. Credit Karma can help. They have just upgraded their website to include new user friendly tools to help consumers make sense of this data to understand how various elements negatively or positively affect their credit scores. Lenders use this information to determine how dependable consumers are in determining which credit cards, auto loans, and other financial products to offer.
Lin said that Credit Karma pulls the consumer's credit history from Chicago based TransUnion and then analyzes the information based on total debt, credit utilization ! ratio, open credit cards, lines of credit, and on-time payment history. Consumers with higher scores and more dependability typically receive better offers. Credit Karma does not provide the consumer with the actual credit report; however, they can get a free credit report from most major credit reporting firms at annualcreditreport.com.
By extracreditcards
