TransUnion UK supplies your credit report that includes information about you - such as the financial accounts you have with different lenders - to Credit Karma for you to view. This is known as a credit file.

We receive a commission from lenders for any customer who uses our site and is approved for a product such as a credit card or loan.

To change your password you need to log in to your Credit Karma account and click the ‘My Account’ tab from the navigation bar. In the ‘Personal Details’ section you’ll see information regarding your password. Just click the button next to it that says ‘Change’ and you’ll be prompted to input your current password and what you would like to change it to.

Unfortunately, once you’ve set your username, we can’t change it. That’s because we use it to identify you.

To change your email address you need to log in to your Credit Karma account and click the ‘My Account’ tab from the navigation bar. In the ‘Personal Details’ section you’ll see information regarding your email address. Just click the button next to it that says ‘Change’ and you’ll be prompted to input what you would like to change it to.

To change your home address you need to log in to your Credit Karma account and click the ‘My Account’ tab from the navigation bar. In the ‘Personal Details’ section you’ll see information regarding your home address. Just click the button next to it that says ‘Change’ and you’ll be prompted to input what you would like to change it to.

We can make the relevant changes to your Credit Karma account, but first we’ll need to see a legal document with your new name on it, like your passport, driving licence or marriage certificate.

You can send a scanned copy of your evidence via email to contact@support.creditkarma.co.uk

Or post a copy of your evidence to Credit Karma Customer Services Team, PO Box 491, Leeds, LS3 1WZ.

When we receive this evidence, we’ll be able to amend your account for you.

Your date of birth is one of the key pieces of information we use to match you to a credit report. That’s why once you’ve signed up to Credit Karma, we’re unable to change it for you.

To get a reminder for your username or to reset your password, just go to the Log In screen and click the link marked ‘Forgotten?’. You’ll then be prompted for your email address and if you’ve forgotten your username, you’ll also be asked for the answer to your security question.

Unfortunately no, you can only access Credit Karma when connected to a UK-based server. So, if you try to access Credit Karma from outside the UK while on holiday, you’ll see our service isn’t available but don’t worry, it’ll work fine when you get back.

If you no longer wish to receive any Credit Karma or Credit Coach services, simply email us at contact@support.creditkarma.co.uk and we will administer this change within a reasonable time.

With Credit Karma, you have free access to your credit report and credit score so you can look at it as often as you want, there are no restrictions. Remember your credit score and the information in your report will be updated weekly, so we’d recommend you check it regularly, just as you’d do with your bank statement or utility bills.

Credit Karma provides a weekly snapshot of your credit report and credit score. We believe this should be sufficient for most people, most of the time. However, if for any reason you urgently need to see any updates or changes that may have happened since your last update, you can access your statutory credit report by clicking here. This will give you the most recent view of your credit report.

The credit score available through Credit Karma is out of 710.

Your credit score reflects your history of borrowing and the likelihood of you making repayments should you borrow again. If you have a high score, you are usually seen as a lower risk and, consequently, you generally have a greater chance of being approved for credit.

However, it’s important to remember that lenders don’t make their decision solely off your score. In fact, when they review an application they consider loads of different things. This means that a high score doesn’t automatically lead to credit approval in all cases and vice versa with a low score.

Every credit reference agency (CRA) has a unique way of calculating and displaying your credit score, so there’s no way of directly comparing them. There’s no industry standard or one size fits all and that’s why it’s often recommended to use more than one CRA when checking your credit score to get a view on how each agency rates you.

The score shown on Credit Karma, which is provided by the credit reference agency TransUnion UK, is out of 710 but some other credit reference agencies may score out of 999, for example.

At Credit Karma we don’t lower your score or change the information we receive from TransUnion UK in any way. It’s of the utmost importance to us to make sure we’re presenting the data we receive from TransUnion UK accurately. Plus, we’re regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who hold us to the highest standards.

You can see all the financial and related information TransUnion UK holds about you on your credit report. They have no access to other personal information, such as criminal records, political persuasion etc.

Credit Karma gets its data from TransUnion UK, which is the fastest growing credit reference agency in the UK. TransUnion UK receives information from all the main high street banks, building societies and credit card companies – meaning the data Credit Karma receives from them is as comprehensive as that held by any other agency. TransUnion UK also receives data from local authorities.

The largest lenders share their information with all three major credit reference agencies, so most information on your credit report should generally be the same across all three CRAs.

All data we hold is governed by the Data Protection Act and we are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, as is TransUnion UK.

Your credit rating is an assessment of your credit worthiness based primarily upon your history of borrowing and repayment. The higher your credit rating, the lower your credit risk and the more likely you are to have your application for credit accepted.

Remember, no credit rating guarantees that you will be accepted for any product that you apply for, nor does a lower one indicate that you will be turned down, as this is at the sole discretion of the lender. Every credit provider will have their own rules and usually use a combination of the following to help them make their decision:

• Information supplied by you when you apply
• Data supplied by a credit reference agency like TransUnion UK, who helps lenders check if you’re on the electoral roll at your current address, if you’ve paid your credit commitments on time and if you have insolvencies or County Court Judgements
• Information about any existing accounts you already have with the lender
• Their own policies and rules

Credit rating: Needs Work

A rating in this banding indicates that you are likely to have difficulty obtaining credit and may find that credit providers will turn you down. When you’re accepted, you will often find that it will be for offers with higher interest rates or fees.

Credit rating: Fair

A rating within this banding indicates that you may occasionally or frequently be rejected when applying for credit. When credit is extended to you, you may find you can’t get all the best deals in the market, and in cases where lenders offer different interest rates to people depending on their credit, you will tend to be offered a higher rate.

Credit rating: Good

A rating within this banding indicates that you can often expect to be accepted when applying for credit, and may be in a good position to choose between different credit providers.

Credit rating: Excellent

A rating within the top banding indicates that you can most often expect to be accepted when applying for credit, and may be in a good position to take advantage of the better deals available in the market.

The Short Term Loans tab contains a database of credit account information held by TransUnion UK (the company that provides Credit Karma with your credit file), which is updated on a more timely basis. Financial institutions in the UK have agreed to share information about their credit agreements via TransUnion UK’s Short Term Loan database (sometimes referred to as MODA). This Short Term Loans information allows some lenders to assess recent significant events that will affect your credit file. It allows lenders to check how an individual has repaid other lenders recently and will give them a more timely indication of whether applicants will be able to afford to repay or take on any new agreements.

Lenders update the information they supply to our Short Term Loans database which we update weekly. These updates include new accounts or changes to existing accounts. The date the lender created the most recent information supplied to us is displayed on each separate Short Term Loans record on your file.

All accounts that have had an update in the last 50 days will be reported in the Short Term Loans data on your credit file.

Lenders accessing the Short Term Loans database may take closed accounts into consideration when assessing applications for credit. Even though the account is displayed to them as closed, it still contains information about the account before it was closed. Short Term Loan accounts will only be displayed for 50 days after the last update, including being closed.

It could be that the name shown on your credit report is a parent company or subsidiary of a company that you may recognise and you may have approved to run a credit check on you. For example, an entry for a credit search by O2 - would appear as Telefonica UK. To better understand who this company is, you should contact them directly and ask for further details. If the company agrees to remove a search from your credit file, they’ll let TransUnion UK know and update your credit file.

If you have used a price comparison site to search for a product, their Terms and Conditions sometimes state that a credit search may be carried out by themselves or their partner organisations. This may mean that a search carried out by a company you do not recognise is present on your credit report - it may be one of the companies whose details were shown to you, or it could be a partner of one of those companies and it’s nothing to worry about.

Please also remember that searches stay on your file for two years.

Yes, on the credit report available to you on Credit Karma you can see everyone who has searched your TransUnion UK credit file in the last 24 months. These will be shown in the ‘Search History’ section of your report.

Searches you request on your own file are not classed as credit searches and are not seen by lenders.

No, you have to give permission for a search to be made on your credit report. This will normally be done as part of the application process for the credit account.

TransUnion UK keeps a record of all searches for 24 months. This allows lenders to take account of previous credit searches when you apply for credit. But remember, your report doesn’t show whether or not an application was successful.

Lenders usually look at searches along with other information you have provided in your application. By looking at credit searches, lenders can spot any unusual activity or look for possible signs that would indicate financial difficulties. They can also help lenders to prevent fraud.

A record is kept of any person who is financially associated with you, for example, anyone you have, or have had, a joint bank account or a joint mortgage with. Any associations will be shown on the "Financial Connections" section of your credit report.

If you want to disassociate yourself from an ex-partner or anyone else you have had a financial relationship with, you'll find a button in the Connections & Other Names section of your report which will allow you to raise a dispute with TransUnion UK, which will then notify the lender and ask them to investigate.

A Notice of Correction is a short explanatory note (up to 200 words) you can add to an entry on your credit report to explain the background to that information, for example, the reason for a late payment. Anyone searching your credit report in the future will see the Notice and they must take account of it when you apply for credit. (This might slow down your application)

Send a letter to TransUnion UK, Dispute Team, PO Box 491, Leeds, LS3 1WZ with the wording you would like to add in your file, your full name, date of birth and address. Please remember to sign your letter.

Alternatively, you can email with the above information to consumer.admin@transunion.co.uk

Please remember that the Notice of Correction can’t be more than 200 words, defamatory, libellous, incorrect or frivolous. The note will remain on your TransUnion UK credit file (which you can see via your Credit Karma credit report) until you ask TransUnion UK to remove it.

If you see something on the credit report you see on Credit Karma that you believe isn’t right, you should raise a dispute against it with TransUnion UK. Simply log into your Credit Karma account, go to the item you think is incorrect and click the button marked ‘dispute’ next to it. TransUnion UK, who provides your credit file, will then look into this for you and get back to you within 28 days.

It’s important to note that any issues/complaints you have about the data in your credit report has to go through TransUnion UK, as they provide us with your data. We don’t alter the information we receive from TransUnion UK and are unable to make any changes to your credit file. However, if you have queries about our website or service, we’re more than happy to help.

If TransUnion UK updates your credit information in response to your dispute, we’ll show this updated information on your next refreshed report. Note that it could take up to 7 weeks for you to see the corrected information on your credit report.

TransUnion UK will provide you with a response within 28 days of the dispute being raised.

TransUnion UK can only change or update information that is shown on your credit report with permission from the particular lender. This is done by lenders sending them new information. They do this every 4-6 weeks and once they receive this information they’ll automatically update your credit report.

Remember, you only see your refreshed credit report on Credit Karma every 7 days, which means it can take up to 7 weeks for you to see new changes reflected on your report.

If you are unhappy with the service you have received from Credit Karma, you can register a complaint in writing directly with our Member Support team. You can do this via email and we will investigate this for you.

Email: dpo@support.creditkarma.co.uk

It is important that you provide us with as much information as possible. In your complaint to us please include the following:

• Full Name
• Full Address
• Date of Birth
• Email Address
• A clear description of your complaint
• Any documentary evidence to support your complaint
• What outcome you require
• Any relevant reference numbers

We will investigate your complaint using our internal complaints procedure:

• You will be contacted via email or letter to confirm we have received your complaint and that it is under investigation.
• You may also be contacted if we require further information.
• On completion of the investigation into your complaint, we will write to you and set out the findings of the investigation which has been carried out, whether your complaint has been upheld or rejected, and the reasons for that.
• Once we have issued our final response, we will not enter into any further correspondence regarding your complaint unless asked to do so by the regulator.

We will look to deal with your complaint as soon as possible. As a minimum:

• We will acknowledge any written complaint within 5 days.
• We will aim to provide a final response within 8 weeks.
• If we are not able to provide a final response within 8 weeks, we will explain why and indicate when we will be able to provide a final response.

If you are unhappy with our final response, you can contact one of the following organisations, depending on the nature of your complaint:

You can also complain using the European Commission’s Online Dispute Resolution Platform. This is an online facility designed to help consumers resolve complaints they have when they have bought/signed up for goods and/or services online. You can access the European Commission’s Online Dispute Resolution Platform at https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/odr

Being refused credit can be upsetting and confusing. To help you understand why this has happened, you can ask the lender to explain their decision. They should then explain whether their decision resulted from information held on your credit report, as a result of credit scoring, or because of something else.

Lenders base their decisions on different factors, so if one lender turns you down, it doesn't mean everyone will. Remember every time you apply for credit, it’s recorded on your credit report and some lenders see a large number of applications as a reason to turn you down.

Searches you request on your own file are not classed as credit searches and are not seen by lenders.

No. If a company makes a search a record will be shown on your credit report, but it will not show whether your application was accepted or rejected.

Lenders generally use a combination of the following to help them make their decision:

• Information supplied by you when you apply
• Data supplied by a credit reference agency like TransUnion UK, who helps lenders check if you’re on the electoral roll at your current address, if you’ve paid your credit commitments on time and if you have insolvencies or County Court Judgements
• Information about any existing accounts you already have with the lender
• Their own policies and rules

Only the lender can give you a definite reason for declining you.

Many of the main lenders use TransUnion UK’s (who supplies Credit Karma with your credit file) data when assessing an application. That’s why it’s important to check that the information you see on Credit Karma is correct before applying for credit.

When someone leaves a property, their financial details stay attached to them, rather than the address. Someone else can affect your chances of getting credit, but only if you have a financial association, like a joint bank account or a joint mortgage.

There are some simple things that you can do that generally help improve your credit report:

• Check your credit report regularly
• Pay your credit agreements and utility bills on time
• Close any accounts or financial products you are not using
• Make sure you are registered on the electoral roll at your current address
• Use a Notice of Correction – these are notes you can add to your credit report to explain why you were late with a particular payment.

People sometimes like to know how likely they are to be accepted for a loan or credit card before they apply, to avoid wasting their time applying for products that they are very likely to be turned down for or to avoid the embarrassment of being rejected.

Our partner is able to calculate a ‘confidence score’ on behalf of lenders, which you can use as a guide to understand how likely you are to have your application accepted based on your personal circumstances.

Your likelihood of being accepted for a particular credit card or loan is rated out of a score of 10. The higher the score, the more likely you are to have your application approved. A low score means you would be unlikely to have your application approved. Please remember that even with a high score, there’s no guarantee of acceptance, as this is at the sole discretion of the lender.

The information from your credit report is used together with the other information you give us to determine the confidence rating for each product. You will be able to see a record of the search on your file, but it will not affect your credit rating in any way.

No it doesn’t guarantee that you will be accepted, as this is at the sole discretion of the lender. However, your confidence rating can help you choose which products to apply for as it indicates your likelihood of being accepted for them.

This can and will happen. The confidence rating is a guide to help you make decisions but lenders take into consideration lots of information when assessing an application and a high score doesn’t guarantee acceptance, as this is at the sole discretion of the lender.

Identity theft generally means the misuse of the identity (such as name, date of birth, current address or previous addresses) of another person, without their knowledge or consent. These identity details are then used to obtain goods and services in that person’s name.

Identity fraud generally refers to the use of a stolen identity in criminal activity, to obtain goods or services by deception. This usually involves the use of stolen or forged identity documents, such as a passport or driving licence.

Anyone can fall victim to identity theft or fraud. There are some warning signs that suggest you might be a victim and that a fraudster is using your details to obtain goods or services in your name:

• Your bank or credit card statements don’t arrive, or you notice that some of your mail appears to be missing
• Your statements include charges for items you didn’t purchase or order
• A debt collection agency contacts you about money owed on goods you didn’t order or on an account you didn’t open
• You receive a letter or phone call telling you you’ve been accepted or declined for accounts you never applied for

Checking your credit report regularly will also help you to spot any unusual activity.

Checking your credit report regularly can help you notice if something looks unusual. This could be a sign your identity has been stolen and is being used to apply for credit.

For an administration fee, Cifas - the UK's fraud prevention service - can place a 'Protective Registration' warning on your credit file. This will tell lenders that you think your personal information is at risk of being used fraudulently.

When a lender receives an application with your details, they'll make extra checks to make sure the person applying is you and not a fraudster. You can find out more about Cifas and the services they offer at http://www.cifas.org.uk.

If you suspect you're a victim of identity theft, you should contact your lenders immediately. They can then stop any further spending on that account and start a fraud investigation. If they confirm the fraud, they'll ask us to remove the details relating to this from your file. That's so the activities of the fraudster will not affect the likelihood of you getting credit in the future. Find more details here: www.cifas.org.uk

For an administration fee, Cifas - the UK's fraud prevention service - can place a 'Protective Registration' warning on your credit file. This will tell lenders that you think your personal information is at risk of being used fraudulently.

When a lender receives an application with your details, they'll make extra checks to make sure the person applying is you and not a fraudster. You can find out more about Cifas and the services they offer at www.cifas.org.uk.