Credit scores play a huge role in your financial and personal life. Credit scores impact your ability to get a mortgage or rent an apartment, they determine whether or not you will get approved for a student loan or credit card, and your credit scores even influence the rates you pay on car insurance.
For those looking for a job, credit scores are equally important since many employers are checking job applicants’ credit ratings before determining whom to hire. The best way to stay on top of your credit health is to check your credit reports at least once a year and review your credit scores as well. The most common type of credit score is the FICO score. It ranges from 300 to 850 point. The higher your credit score, the better off you are financially.
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Black Enterprise. In personal finance expert Lynnette Khalfani-Cox’s latest book, Perfect Credit: 7 Steps to a
If you got behind on your auto loan or mortgage payments and the bank or lender repossessed your vehicle, the event will be reported to
By federal law, you are entitled to receive one free credit report annually from each of the three main credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.
If you’ve applied for a loan recently, your lender would have pulled your credit report – or even multiple credit reports – to determine your
Q: After paying off all my credit cards, I canceled all of them as well. I currently use only cash even for significant purchases. I
Q. Does medical debt affect you (or your credit score) as much as credit card debt? A. No, medical debt doesn’t affect your credit rating
Right before and after the holidays you’ll probably get a lot of bank offers to transfer credit-card balances from one account to another. If you
Q: I have a Discover card that is used for mostly all household expenses. I have had this card since 1985 and have been paying
Q: “I am 29 and I just borrowed money from my bank to establish credit. What else can I do to establish credit without hurting
FICTION: If I check my credit report often, all those “inquiries” will lower my credit score.
Fortunately, there is one recent change to the world of credit scoring concerning small debts, which are sometimes called “nuisance” collection accounts. In August 2009,
If you have never seen your credit reports, or been told your credit scores, you may have only a rough idea of your standing. If so, that’s a big mistake. I don’t want you to have hazy or vague knowledge about such a very important topic. I want you to be crystal-clear about your credit rating and know what specific actions you can take to maximize and even profit from it.
Soft inquiries – even lots of them – will not bump off or remove hard inquiries on your credit reports. This is because all inquiries
Your FICO credit scores – like all credit scores – are based on the underlying data and information that is contained in your credit files with the “Big 3” credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. According to Fair Isaac, the company that created the three-digit FICO scores (which range from 300 to 850 points), in order to have a FICO score generated for you, your credit history must contain at least three things:
Whenever you notice a mistake in your credit report, you should always dispute it – with the credit bureaus or the creditor that reported inaccurate information. Getting an error removed from your credit file usually takes about 30 days to be completed.
