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Credit Karma
The average credit score of people using various e-mail services, based on Credit Karma's database of users.
The next time a friend of yours e-mails you to ask to borrow some money, take a closer look at that e-mail address.
It turns out, the e-mail service your friend uses may tell you a lot about whether you’re likely to get paid back.
The website Credit Karma recently took a look at its database of around 100,000 users to figure out the average credit score of people who use various e-mail services. Credit Karma provides people with free credit scores subsidized by advertising, and offers people deals based on their credit scores.
Based on Credit Karma’s number crunching, your buddy with the Gmail address could be a better bet to lend that money to than your pal who uses Yahoo.
A credit score can range from 501 to 900. A higher score is considered better, as the person is expected to be most likely to pay off their debts on time.
The results were surprisingly similar to what Credit Karma found about three years ago when it ran the same experiment with just 20,000 users. The company provided more recent data at Life Inc.'s request.
Does it surprise you that there seems to be a link?
Leave a Comment:
And maybe Kredit Karma can "link" our credit scores and email addresses to which brand of toilet paper we use to wipe our butts. It's a frigging email address but for Kredit Karma is a potential profit using other people's data.....
Lots of 'value'....now ain't it?
You would think but one of the biggest professions in demand and, predicted, will be for the next 10 years are actuaries. These people do nothing but link things to money and corporations eat it up, like stink on that toilet paper we use to wipe our butts.
The bottom line is that when you pay for something in the future it has nothing to do with supply and demand but what can be sold for a premium to what group of people.
What a stupid article, what about me, I have a email address with my ISP, a company email address, a Yahoo email address for YM and Gmail to use google shopping. Can I add up all my credit scores?
Mark do you use yahoo?
This article is a bunch of maa-laar-key!
I wonder how Kredit Karma rated the derivatives that crashed our economy? Probably depends on where they got their money in the rating.
That's funny. I have Yahoo and my credit score is 808. I use Yahoo because I didn't keep my AOL account 10 years ago. LOL But then again, I don't borrow money from friends. So they do not have to worry about it either.
All three of my credit reports show my credit as being over 800 also and I have a Yahoo account; could it be that my credit is excellent because I don't spend money where I don't have to??? This is an incredibly stupid report. Anyone who pays for e-mail when you can access it free is a sucker.
All three of my credit reports show my credit as being over 800 also and I have a Yahoo account; could it be that my credit is excellent because I don't spend money where I don't have to??? This is an incredibly stupid report. Anyone who pays for e-mail when you can access it free is a sucker.
All three of my credit reports show my credit as being over 800 also and I have a Yahoo account; could it be that my credit is excellent because I don't spend money where I don't have to??? This is an incredibly stupid report. Anyone who pays for e-mail when you can access it free is a sucker.
Credit score: 820
Primary email account: hotmail
Back to the drawing board there, Kredit Karma.
I think its a stupid research project, and they linked the to variables. It may be like linking Race vs. Crime. There may be some link to Domain vs. Credit, higher rates, different terms affecting the consumer, but I dont know.
Carrie, this was based on 100k people... not just you.
Really? That high? Can I borrow some money? lol
The main variable here is that this is the address that is linked to the person's credit--that would be a person's "official" email. Many people have a more official email that is linked to their workplace--and which would probably not show up on any of these mail-hosting sites.
Those who can only afford or who only use a hotmail address would be higher risk. Remember, this particular study is only looking at those who use standard addresses (personal email addresses) rather than their professional addresses (the email associated with their job).
Basically, this study misses a huge chunk of people--those who use their professional/official email on forms associated with credit because that is the email that they check all the time and at which they would be less likely to miss an important notification. Well, or the people who don't list an email at all because they would rather not use electronic messaging.
Yes, it's a bogus study that has used poor information-gathering methods.
I have a wireless connection that I pay for along with my telephone and cable TV service, but I still use Yahoo for my email service. What does THAT say about my credit, please?
The users with low credit scores tend to use the free email services -- why would that surprise anyone?
Funny. I use hotmail as one of my email accounts, and my credit score last Wednesday was 841. Maybe one reason why it's high is because I try to avoid unnecessary expenses.
why would you pay for e-mail? Yes, I get free included e-mail addresses with my BlackBerry service, cable/data subscription, college account, and with my banking services...but it's easier to use Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail accounts.
Who pays for personal e-mail (unless it's for business-related activity)?
Smart users use free, web-based email services from providers that aren't going away in the forseeable future. Ones that integrate nicely with their smartphones (gmail, hotmail) are a plus.
actually, a lot of us like the portability of a cloud-based email address. I know many lawyers, judges, others who use hotmail. My own law firm is MSN based, both for my hotmail business email and for my free web page. Why spend money where you don't have to?
Gmail is free.
Mark, I have my own domain solely for the purpose of hosting email for my family and friends. I pay about $15/month and everyone else gets free and very reliable email.
Oh, and all three of my scores are well above 800 and my wife's scores are all above 825 (I put the cars and house in my name but the credit cards in hers so she has more signature credit than I do).
If a "friend" is asking to borrow money, thats a warning in itself. If your friend had good credit he would use it instead of seeking a loan from others....
Why does it not surprise me that a rancher from Arizona bases his friendships on how much money and credit someone has?
I use hotmail and gmail and have a credit score of 735...so I guess I'm an exception to the data?
The lower ratings are associated with addresses that offer free email and, as a consequence, contains a higher percentage of people who can't afford a regular internet service provider (ISP) who are greater credit risks. Personally, I use my free hotmail address as my primary email address because I change ISPs frequently enough that I don't want to keep sending out email address updates to everyone. I use my free yahoo address when I dealing with someone or some company that needs my email address but with whom I don't expect a continued relationship.
What a crappy article. As if I care what email service someone uses or I JUDGE someone by what they use. Quite frankly I judge the people I see wearing clothing with someones logo on it in huge letters as WANNABIES.
No ... no supprise here!
Also, consider how we address others in that same message as much as how we sign or name to the message.
Of course u all kno betr than 2 ask for $ wit no gud spelin.
The whole credit score business is a [Scam].
Indeed. Credit scoring is just a way to justify higher interest rates and additional fees as protection against "risk".
So you're saying a history of not paying back loans should have no bearing on getting a new loan?
If I was lending money, I'd sure as heck want to know if you have a history of paying back on time...
Capn-1, it's a novel idea but the current system isn't really setup to do just that. When you can have a higher credit score for allowing long term outstanding debts than someone who pays down their debts on time and keeps no open lines of credit it's obvious that history isn't the cause for assessment.
Honestly, I see a system engineered to assign arbitrary values based on limited and highly assumed data (much of which the companies & banks shouldn't have access to) that is written in such a way the layperson is unable to fully understand it with the intention of roping them into long-term payments. That's not even to mention copyrighting the formula, but that's a different issue. It really needs done away with or completely redone but I doubt we'll see either happen in our lifetime.
Hmmmm--m-m-m .... no HughesNet listed. We must be "off the chart"...or "way out there" in space...oh, wait, we're both...
What does credit have to do with much of anything anymore??? Just look at the banking/prime mortgage scandals...It's the Land of Oz....don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain...HA! HA!
Hmmmm--m-m-m .... no HughesNet listed. We must be "off the chart"...or "way out there" in space...oh, wait, we're both...
What does credit have to do with much of anything anymore??? Just look at the banking/prime mortgage scandals...It's the Land of Oz....don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain...HA! HA!
I'm tired of being profiled based on unrelated things. Just because I may only have two credit cards, I'm automatically lump into a high risk group of new card holders. I don't want a load of cards so I manage my finances accordingly but I get punished because of the group I get put into. Yes, credit card scores are a scam that don't really sever the consumer, they just give the corporations an excuse to screw the consumer.
and you get punished if you have too many of the "wrong kind."
Actually, a person with two credit cards has a higher credit rating than a person with a single card. Multiple cards boosts the credit ratio in a positive direction because you have more credit available than you are using. Too many cards can have a negative effect, but 3-5 is good.
It's only bad if carry a high balance on any of the cards.
http://credit.about.com/od/creditreportscoring/a/creditutilization.htm
I use Yahoo!, Hotmail, and Google on a routine basis...not to mention, I still have an Earthlink email address that is now very seldom used, but Earthlink is still my ISP.
What does that say about me?
I had Earthlink for years until they tried to charge me an extra monthly fee for putting in a wireless connection. I switched to FIOS as soon as it became available, dropped my landline (use cell only) and saved $80.00/month between the lack of landline and cable costs (being paid to yet a third company)..
Hey Peter, probably about the same thing having a Netscape account says about me. :-)
This is total bunk. Move on to something important and worthwhile. I have an 812 and use msn- does anyone really give a rats ass?
This is great, except it's a statistic. And statistically I can prove owning a pet causes floods.
What skews this data is people who don't use the service. For instance, I have a hotmail account, but I can check my credit score at any time through my credit union, so I'd never use a service to get my reports for me, so my e-mail address wouldn't be registered. So they couldn't check my score vs my e-mail, and thus my data isn't counted.
And my credit score is defiantly over 660. My friend has a gmail as her primary and our scores are very similar, both are higher than the BellSouth average.
If everyone on newsvine used Credit Karma it would likely change the data. Maybe one or two hosting sites would be flipped around.
That's a bunch of crap i have both a yahoo and Hotmail address and a credit score over 800.
And how many people have email accounts on all of the above. I create and discard email accounts to avoid spam. I use a mail forwarder to hide my main email account from even business I trust. Come in handy when you get spam and the only company you gave the account to tries to claim they did not share it against their own rules. Credit ratings are such a scam, mine tends to be lower than some people because I always pay off my credit cards and pay if full for everything else. The banks are such fools. They would rather try to extort a higher interest rate because of credit score and fail to realize that I am the one can dictate that they get NOTHING if I choose.
It is a statistical anomoly, people with poor credit scores will opt for free credit reports. Those with good scores probably won't or use a service. Additionally I would never use a "main" e-mail account for free stuff, you just get inundated with junk offers. I have Hotmail, yahoo, Gmail and Comcast accounts
Maybe instead of actually believe the stats, we realize that the credit scoring AND banking industries are scams. They make money off of those with poor scores. They make money off of those with great scores. It's a win-win for them...
This here is about the biggest bull @!$%# story that has hit the internet. I had the opportunity to pick any email address I wanted. I chose gmail, it's simple it's sraight forward and it's all I need!According to your graf my credit score is 677! what a joke it makes no sense...
More telling than the email domain is the user name, I think. Who would you rather lend money to, JRJohnson@hotmail or monkeyspunk@msn?
Occasionally people find a better internet offer and switch, when one does that they lose their email account with somebody such as comcast, or bell south.
With children friends and such, some have had the same consistent email account such as hotmail since 1998. I know I get frustrated with people who are constantly changing their emails with their providers, it is much simpler to have yahoo, or hotmail as a constant.
Oh my, why do so many of you think this is speaking about your individual credit score? You use Yahoo and have an 820, congratulations... you can consider yourself excluded from this graph. All statistical data considers standard deviation and if you fall into that category, it doesn't mean the analysis is bad. Information is provided to you, consider the factors related and extrapolate for yourself from there.
99% of people who comment on articles that include statistics don't understand statistics.
And to think Allison Linn got paid to write that article.
Really! Why does the media even waste our time with this crap!
Oh, great, thanks, just the kind of public information we all need. [/sarc]
Since I have a Gmail account now I guess I can expect to get a lot more credit card/banking/Nigerian Prince spam. Yay.