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Using Discover's FICO score checker tool helps Discover customers stay on top of their personal credit score as well as access to other useful features.
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Discover offers a FICO score checker that can help you stay on top of your personal credit rating. Even better, the Discover Card free credit score includes credit monitoring and Social Security number alerts. Is the free Discover Scorecard safe to use, and is it worth your time? Let’s find out in this Discover Credit Scorecard review.
Before we dig in, first note that while Discover was the first major credit card issuer to make its FICO tools available to all consumers and not just its customers, in the spring of 2022, Discover became the first to pull back that access. The Discover Card free credit score is no longer available to the general public; to access it, you’ll need to be the primary cardholder on a Discover Card account, a Discover loan recipient, or a banking customer.
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The free Discover Scorecard is an easy way for Discover customers to monitor and maintain their credit scores. Using the free Discover FICO Scorecard, you can check your FICO credit score for free, any time, without harming your credit by checking.
Discover Credit Scorecard also alerts you to three different types of new activity that can impact your credit score or signal potential fraud:
Discover Credit Scorecard is completely free for Discover customers. You’ll never have to enter a credit card number, and there are no paid tiers offering access to extra services. You can access your Discover FICO score as often as you’d like without harming your credit rating, although FICO scores only update once per month.
The free Discover Scorecard is available to Discover customers only. That reflects a change made in the spring of 2022 when the credit card issuer stopped making its free Discover scorecard available to all consumers. As a Discover credit cardholder, banking customer, or loan recipient, you can check your Discover FICO score as often as you’d like, for free.
If you’re thinking of using the Discover card free credit score to stay on top of your credit rating, you may wonder how accurate is Discover’s FICO score. The answer is that Discover FICO score is as accurate as most FICO scores. In other words, it’s useful, but it may not always deliver the full story of your creditworthiness. Here’s why.
Your FICO score is a three-digit number derived from information in your credit reports that helps potential creditors determine how likely you are to repay a loan. It’s a summary that measures how long you’ve had credit, how much credit you have, how much of your available credit you’re currently using, and if your repayment history shows that you make payments on time.
A FICO score of less than 580 qualifies as Poor, below the national average score of US consumers. These ratings continue upward, with Fair (580-669), Good (670-739), Very Good (740-799), and Exceptional (800+) rounding out the ratings.
Most lenders examine input from one or more of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Discover calculates your FICO score based on information provided only on your TransUnion credit report. So your Discover FICO score could vary slightly from a report that includes data from more/different sources or weights factors such as payment history or the types of credit you have differently. However, your score should not vary significantly.
Keep in mind, too, that like any credit report, your Discover FICO score is a snapshot of one moment in time. Your score may change slightly any time your credit situation changes, such as if you open or close a new account, borrow a large amount, or pay off a significant amount you owe.
The credit score you’ll get from Discover Credit Scorecard is your FICO Score 8 from TransUnion. Many others in the free-credit-score business, such as Credit Karma and Credit Sesame, give you your VantageScore credit score instead. However, FICO is the credit-scoring formula most often used by banks and other creditors, so it’s significant that the free Discover Scorecard delivers a FICO score.
While your VantageScore and your FICO score won’t typically differ too dramatically (and some creditors do use the VantageScore formula), your FICO score is still what most people think of when they hear “credit score.” You can learn more about the differences between FICO and VantageScores in our guide to credit scoring models.
Note, however, that Discover FICO score considers data only from your TransUnion credit report and not from the two other major credit bureaus. By contrast, for example, Credit Karma offers access to information from both your TransUnion and Equifax credit reports. Still, with Discover Credit Scorecard, you’re getting your FICO score as opposed to your VantageScore. Remember that your FICO score is more likely to come into play when you apply for Discover credit or any other loan/credit product.
While you’ll get select information from your Experian credit report, you won’t get access to the full report. To do that, you’ll need to go to AnnualCreditReport.com and request a free copy of your credit report.
Discover Credit Scorecard offers fewer added services than many free-credit-score competitors. However, you will gain access to a few important features in addition to your credit score. Here are three:
Discover will notify you if your Social Security number is found on any of thousands of Dark Web sites. These are sites where stolen numbers can be traded or sold for identity theft and fraud. Discover runs these scans daily.
If any new credit cards, loans, or other accounts appear on your TransUnion credit report, Discover will notify you, allowing you to verify or contest those accounts if needed. Discover will check daily for any new activity.
Discover will alert you whenever new credit inquiries appear in your name on your Experian credit report. Discover will check for new credit inquiries every day.
Unlike other similar services, Discover won’t show you credit card/loan offers tailored to your credit profile. The company will invite you to see if you’re pre-approved for a Discover credit card.
Discover Credit Scorecard is a great way to keep an eye on your FICO score and the factors that go into determining it. We like Discover’s free FICO credit score checker so much that we’re sorry to see the company make this service available only to its Discover customers. If you’re in the market for a new credit card, the free Discover FICO score tool might be enough to make you take a closer look at what this credit card company has to offer.
However, the Discover Card free credit score is not the only free credit check tool available. If you aren’t a Discover customer and don’t plan to become one, take a look at some of the other good free credit score websites instead. Each of these services takes a different value-added approach to free credit monitoring, with extras available, such as personalized credit offers, financial calculators and tools, credit score simulators, and credit repair tools. So check out our picks for the best free credit check sites, and choose one or two that deliver the most value for you.
After all, they’re free! And using them to monitor your credit won’t negatively impact your credit score. But because these monitoring tools can help you improve your credit score, they’re definitely worth your time.
For more information on credit scores, check out some of our other resources:
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