Details are in the Karma

Having ignored the smart phone trend for ages, Robert and  I finally upgraded this summer. I am still on the fence about whether or not I actually like it. I think I like the idea of them more than actually having one.

This morning, after dropping the kids off at school and stopping to return a Redbox movie, my phone chirped to let me know I had an email. First thought - ooops! I thought I had turned off mobile data! Second thought - well, let me see who emailed me. 

It was Credit Karma. Last year, my debit card was compromised and I've been on super high alert since then to make sure a compromised card doesn't turn into full blown identity theft. So you can imagine how high my eyebrows shot up when Credit Karma informed me that there had been a hard inquiry (which usually means you have applied for new credit) from Target. 

I haven't applied for new credit from Target. In fact, the last time my credit report should have been pulled is when we purchased a car in July. And, since it's relevant, I was not alerted to that hard inquiry by Credit Karma. Just sayin'...

Smart phone or not, I'm not about to pull up my credit report on it. So I dashed home (I was supposed to be going to the gym) because my over-active brain was imagining all sorts of identity theft scenarios. 

Once home, I log in. Credit Karma has somewhat recently changed their format. This means I spend a lot of time clicking around trying to magically recall the old format and find what I'm looking for. It didn't work. And then I totally freaked out because there was a section saying we had 5 accounts past due. WHAAAAAAAAAAA???????? 

After a 'slight' amount of panic (by which I mean a sh*tload) and much more clicking around, there was no balance on those accounts and certainly no late payments. Thanks for the near heart attack, Credit Karma! 

I should also mention that there was no Target credit inquiry on my credit report. Interestingly enough, there was an inquiry from the orthodontist we visited in August, even though I didn't get an inquiry alert from Credit Karma, nor did I actually apply for credit, either. Harrumph.

To add credit insult to credit injury, upon looking more closely at the email that started all of this, I noticed that the Target inquiry was from December of 2012. 2012!!!!!!! I feel like I need to buy a bunch of stickers that says "Voted most likely to panic for no good reason" and sport those on a prominent location - like my forehead.

Good grief.