Credit scores are a huge part of every consumer’s financial life. Whether you can get a place to live, a job, a loan, insurance, or utility services can be affected by your credit report. Your score can affect how much you’ll pay for those products and services as well. With credit and credit scoring being…
Posts Tagged: Credit Basics
It’s difficult to get exact answers to this important question. Every expert, credit bureau, and loan officer has a different opinion as to where the threshold between good and poor credit lies.
In addition, “good” can be a relative term. Do we mean “good” as in excellent, or “good” as in “good enough”?
Many collection agencies cast a wide net when trying to collect on old debts. You may get a letter that was intended for someone else, perhaps someone with a similar name. It’s important to deal with this issue promptly.
When it comes to your credit report, you have the right to add a personal statement. This statement can be up to 100 words long and gives you the opportunity to explain information in your file.
Two important sections of your credit report are the “Public Records” and “Inquiries” sections. Knowing what personal and public information that is on your report is an important factor to taking control of your finances. It is also important to know what companies have requested a copy of your report.
The third step in this series is to review all of the information contained within the public record section of your annual credit report. Public information and inquiries are usually the last sections to appear in your credit report, though each credit report company does things a bit differently.
Personal information may be the first thing to appear in your credit report, though each credit report company does things a bit differently.
While this personal information has no direct impact on your credit score, it’s very important that everything reported here be accurate and up to date. The credit bureaus use this information to verify your identity, and if anything here is incorrect or outdated, your security may be compromised.
Let’s begin with the Account History section which may not be the first thing you’ll see when you open your credit report, but it is the most important. It’s usually the largest section of the report, as well. When calculating your credit score, FICO gives more weight to your payment history than any other category.
Sometimes having no credit and having bad credit are the same thing in the eyes of creditors. Your answer should be the same in either situation; establish a new credit account and use it very carefully, paying your monthly payments in full and on time.
If you have no luck getting a credit card from a retailer, department store, or gas company, talk to your bank (wherever you keep your savings or checking) and ask for a secured card.
In today’s tutorial we will demonstrate how to obtain your free annual credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com, the official site that allows consumers to request a free credit file disclosure, commonly called a credit report, once every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
Do you want the home of your dreams? Would you like a nice dependable car? If the answer is yes, you may want to take a look at your credit score before applying for credit to purchase these and other items. What IS a credit score? A credit score is a three-digit number that banks,…
Now more than ever it is important for consumers to view their consumer credit reports. Identity theft is reported to be the fastest growing crime and the number one complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission www.ftc.gov for the past five years. Many businesses are reviewing consumer credit reports on prospective employees, and insurance companies…
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