Frequently Asked Questions

Credible is a marketplace that allows you to compare financial products from multiple providers side-by-side. Credible is not a lender, a bank or a credit card issuer — we partner with the best financial service providers so that they can provide you with a variety of competitive options, enabling you to find the right financial product for your needs. Best of all, Credible is completely free!

Find out more about our company on our About Us page.

With Credible’s lending marketplace, you can fill out a simple, two-minute form, and instantly see which lenders you qualify for and at what rates. These are personalized, prequalified rates based on your credit history. Checking your prequalified rates with Credible will not affect your credit score.

Most other comparison sites will only provide you with generic information about a given financial service provider — the rates and information you see will not be specific to you and your credit history. You might be able to go to a specific lender’s website and see your personalized prequalified rates, but you’ll only be able to do this for one lender at a time.

Plus, some comparison sites pass your information to other companies, who then call you and try to sell their products. At Credible, our goal is to shield you from these kinds of aggressive (and annoying!) sales tactics. We only share information with our partner lenders in very specific circumstances, and always with your permission.

Nothing. Checking prequalified rates on Credible is free, and there is no obligation to move forward with a loan.

Typically, with respect to our lending marketplace, our partners pay us a fee when borrowers that we refer to them take out a loan. We do not charge Credible users for our service and the amount of the fees that we receive does not impact the options you see or how those options are displayed on our site.

Because Credible returns prequalified rates, the only way to know which terms you would be eligible for is to fill out our quick prequalification form. You’ll see, right away, whether you prequalify with any of our partner lenders. There’s no risk or commitment, and you can browse and compare prequalified rates in one safe, convenient place.

Your data is encrypted and protected using transport layer security (TLS), the same protocols used by top banks and financial institutions. And we never share your personal information without your permission. Read more about Security at Credible.

Checking rates involves securely sharing some limited information so that we can verify your credit profile and check your eligibility. But it doesn’t mean giving up your privacy.

We built Credible to share only what’s required to get you the best rates and offers. Plus, our lender partners agree not to contact you unless you select their rate. (In the case of personal loans, a network partner may follow up if we can’t find you a prequalified rate ourselves, but we keep the contact limited and you can opt out).

Why do we do it this way? Because we wanted to build a marketplace that we’re happy to use ourselves.

In order to provide personalized prequalified rates for the loan products on our site, Credible or its lender partners will perform a soft credit inquiry, as authorized by the prospective borrower. Soft credit inquiries do not affect your credit score.

Once you choose a loan product on Credible, and once you decide to move forward with a particular lender, the lender will perform a hard credit inquiry.

During Credible’s prequalification stage, we perform a soft credit inquiry, which does not impact your credit score.

When you choose to move forward with a specific partner lender on your Credible Dashboard, you are agreeing to allow your chosen lender to conduct a hard credit inquiry in order to further assess your creditworthiness and eligibility for the loan product you have chosen. Typically, a hard credit inquiry has up to a 5 point impact on a credit score.

FICO, the provider of the most commonly used credit scores, considers credit inquiries for the same type of financial product over a typical shopping period (less than 30 days) as “rate shopping”, and counts them as a single inquiry against your credit score. For example, if you are shopping for a loan with multiple lenders at once over a 30 day period or less, the credit bureaus will likely count this as a single inquiry.

FICO has provided a detailed note on the topic entitled “How do FICO scores consider student loan shopping”, and explains the concept and impact of “rate shopping” under Credit Basics – Credit Checks & Inquiries.

You can use Credible with any type of credit score, and we will do our best to find a prequalified rate that works for you. This includes loans for credit scores of 580+. The fastest way to see if you qualify is to fill out Credible’s two-minute prequalification form. You’ll find out almost instantly whether you prequalify with any of our partner lenders. And, checking these prequalified rates will not affect your credit score.

No problem — just go to our Forgot Password page to request a reset link.

You can terminate your Credible account by emailing [email protected] and instructing Credible to terminate your account. Your Credible profile data will be removed from the website at www.credible.com within 1-2 business days. We will retain your identifiable information as appropriate under state and federal law.

If you suspect fraudulent activity on your Credible account, please contact our Support Team right away at 866-540-6005. Additionally, under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, you have the right to put a fraud alert on your credit report to protect yourself. To do this, you will need to contact the Credit Reporting Agencies: Equifax, Experian, and Transunion.

When you go through the prequalification process, it’s common to receive prequalified rates from some, but not all, of our partner lenders. The lenders who do not offer prequalified rates are required to send you an “adverse action notice” to inform you of their decision and explain the reason. These lenders contact you solely for the purpose of delivering the AAN, which may come via email or in the mail. Receiving this kind of notice does not impact your credit score or show up on your credit report.

If your adverse action notice states that you were ineligible for reasons contained in your credit report, you may contact the credit bureau or bureaus listed on your adverse action notice any time within 60 days after you received the adverse action notice to obtain a free copy of your credit report. You may contact the credit bureau or bureaus to determine if any of the information contained within your credit report may be inaccurate or incomplete. If so, you have the right to contest the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in your credit report.