# Credit Karma shows me somebody else's report **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870 "2014-12-10T18:57:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/1 "2014-12-10T18:57:50Z")
I thought it would be a good idea to check my credit report, so I signed up on Credit Karma. They show me a report for somebody else, with the same first and last name as me, but a different middle initial, and who lives in another state. How did this happen and is there anything I can do about it? ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/2 "2014-12-10T19:27:03Z")
Seriously? Does it show bank account information? Credit cards. SSN? What can you do? Well, you can get free credit reports from [www.annualcreditreport.com](http://www.annualcreditreport.com) once a year from each of the three major credit agencies. That’s the law. Stay away from sites like Credit Karma in the future. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/3 "2014-12-10T19:34:21Z")
It shows a student loan. I know for a fact it’s not my loan because I never had any. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/4 "2014-12-10T19:49:08Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > Seriously? Does it show bank account information? Credit cards. SSN? > > What can you do? Well, you can get free credit reports from [www.annualcreditreport.com](http://www.annualcreditreport.com) once a year from each of the three major credit agencies. That’s the law. Stay away from sites like Credit Karma in the future. Credit Karma is a reputable and useful site. I don’t think it is necessary to tell people to stay away from it because it is a great, free way to monitor your credit. However, your recommendation to request copies of credit reports through [www.annualcreditreport.com](http://www.annualcreditreport.com) is a good one. It is very possible that the error isn’t coming from Credit Karma itself. It could be that your credit really is commingled with someone else’s within the credit reporting agencies themselves. That is a fairly common problem and one worth investigating further to fix. The first time I requested my credit report before I applied for my first mortgage, I found out that my report was a completely inaccurate mess and commingled with things I had never heard of. Credit Karma gets its credit information from TransUnion so you can request a free copy of your actual TransUnion report from [www.annualcreditreport.com](http://www.annualcreditreport.com) and see if it also reports the same inaccurate accounts. If it does, you will have to work with TransUnion and maybe Equifax and Experian to get it cleaned up. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/5 "2014-12-10T19:50:57Z")
Sounds like that loan has been connected to your credit history somehow. Hopefully it isn’t past due or delinquent. You probably should double check using the link that Greg Charles refers to above. If it’s on there, it would appear to being picked up by the three credit reporting agencies. There are procedures to challenge/or dispute items in your credit history that are there in error. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/6 "2014-12-10T20:14:34Z")
I just called TransUnion. They said that no student loans appear on my report. Credit Karma must have done something seriously wrong for this to have happened. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/7 "2014-12-14T16:56:21Z")
Contact CreditKarma and ask them to look into this from their side. They may well get information from places other than TransUnion. Also do check the other big agencies. As an interesting side note: CreditKarma can send you emails if something happens on your accounts. About 2 years ago I got an email saying I had a new hard credit inquiry. As I had not applied for any credit, my reaction was to go WTF! I logged on and saw it was from a _credit union_. I had applied for membership at the credit union the week before but the site glitched when I tried entering information to make an initial deposit, so I thought it had fallen through and planned to retry later on. The credit union, as it turned out, had done the inquiry and approved my membership, something I might not have known about otherwise, and I would have left the application to expire. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/8 "2014-12-15T17:56:32Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Credit Karma is a reputable and useful site. I don’t think it is necessary to tell people to stay away from it because it is a great, free way to monitor your credit. Oh, then I’m sorry I slandered CreditKarma. I was lumping them in with other sites that scam people into paying for what is a free service. What is CreditKarma’s value add to just pulling the reports yourself? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credit-karma-shows-me-somebody-elses-report/706870/9 "2014-12-15T21:12:05Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > What is CreditKarma’s value add to just pulling the reports yourself? It gives you several different types of credit scores including your Transunion credit score up to once a week just by logging in. If you pull the reports yourself, you are limited to just one a year per credit bureau in many cases. It can also alert you any potential problems, tell you how to improve your credit score and match you up with offers like mortgages and credit cards based on your credit scores. It is the latter feature that pays for the site but it is completely free to end users and you never have to buy anything. It is a very useful site overall.