WaMucards holders get free credit scores

I just logged into my Washington Mutual credit card to make a payment at www.wamucards.com and saw that they post your current credit score so you can see it.



The FICO score is used by most financial institutions to gauge creditworthiness. It is calculated using the three major credit bureaus. You have been able to get your credit reports for free once a year from each of the three agencies because the U.S. government mandated it. But credit scores are usually only made available if you pay to get it or when you apply for credit or a loan. This is going to be a great tool for me to track my financial stability. If you want a WaMucards they have some pretty nice deals.

www.wamucards.com

What I understood from their website was that www.wamucards.com is getting rolled into chase.com and they don't currently have a way of providing credit scores as part of chase.com yet. Same end result, a useful feature is gone.

I just tried to log into the account to find the exact wording they used and they want me to make a new username! Why??? I have a chase.com username and I have a wamu user name. I don't need another one....

One more reason why I will just close the account after my mortgage refi is complete. Did I mention the 1% cash back terms got watered down more too? No more $25 for 2500 points. Now it's like $25 for 3500 points or $50 for 5000 points (exact numbers may be incorrect, basic idea is more points required to get cash back at a 1% rate).

For these and other reasons (I should write a separate post about them) Chase has jumped to the top of the list of big banks I avoid doing business with now.

WamuCards.Com

How I Keep Track of my Credit Score

I have a credit card with Washington Mutual (aka WaMu, formerly Providian) which provides a free monthly credit score. I have not charged anything to the card in about a year now. I use it solely for the free credit score, which I find very handy. The card itself sits at home... somewhere (not sure where.... just went through a move).

It seems as though the credit score is updated at the first of the month, but it is not available on the website until the 20th or so. I am not sure how accurate that first date is. The site says "Updated on: 12/01/2006", but it seems strange to me that the score is pulled on the 1st but I can't access it until the 20th.

In any case, despite the question about the timing of the updates, the service is extremely handy. It shows everything from one reporting agency (in my experience, it has always been TransUnion, although evidently it can be Experian as well). I know that all 3 FICO scores track together, from the couple of times I have checked all 3. As long as I check my credit reports (not credit scores) regularly to make sure that there's no bad info on any of them, I am content just using the Washington Mutual service to check my credit score rather than something else.

I've had my Providian/WaMucards since 2003, which has allowed me to track my FICO through quite a few changes. The biggest monthly rise was when I got a new credit card with a $10k limit (at the time, more than all my other card limits combined) and transferring my balances (which were all skating close to the limits) to that card. Since then, I have paid off that card and never run up a balance on any of my cards.

If you want to sign up for a Washington Mutual card to get this benefit, the website is WaMuCards.com. If not, the best place to get your FICO scores is through MyFICO.com . If you decide to use MyFICO, please use that link, as I just signed up to be part of their referrer network and will get a commission based on whatever you buy. The Google ads aren't getting many clicks (not so surprising) so hopefully this will work better.