So, what is a FICO Score? It’s a number that is formulated based on your credit history helping lenders evaluate your credit risk. Your FICO Score is used to determine credit offers and interest rates — and now it’s free for you to view.

Wells Fargo and Discover Card say they now provide free credit scores along with Barclaycard and First Bankcard — financial monitoring website, CreditKarma, touts that you can get your credit scores online in minutes — others now offering free scores include the online credit-educational sites Credit.com, Quizzle and CreditSesame.

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.

Start by doing a credit checkup — you can monitor your credit yourself by requesting a free report once a year from each of the credit bureaus through www.annualcreditreport.com but the free report won’t include your credit score, you’ll pay about $8 to get the credit bureau’s proprietary number.