Credit scores — they’re like report cards for grown-ups. It’s a three-digit “grade” you get on a scale that ranges from 300 to 850. Your score indicates your creditworthiness to potential lenders, banks, landlords, insurance companies, and even to some employers, for instance. I’m sure you know that the higher your score the better.

Most people can get confused when it comes to checking their credit scores. Consumers wonder which credit score should they check, what’s the best credit score website and are credit scores really free? These questions are asked often, but rarely do people find the right answers.

If you’ve ever tried to get your credit score for free, you know that there’s no such thing as a truly free credit score. You’re forced to enter your credit card information and sign up for a free trial of a service, just so you can forget to cancel and get charged for a service you don’t want. Though you can get a free credit report easily with no credit card, one popular website, Credit Karma, allows you to retrieve your credit score without providing any payment information.

So, you can get your TransUnion Credit Score for free? You can get absolutely free credit monitoring? These are services that people pay good money for and Credit Karma, a company that isn’t affiliated with any of the credit bureaus, is giving it away for free. Does this sound too good to be true or is Credit Karma a scam?