Posts Tagged ‘Credit Bureau’

Boost Your Credit Score

Posted in Finance on 03/19/2011 01:00 pm by
Rick Belden asked:




Boost your credit score by collecting all your bills and financial papers and giving them a spring cleaning, regardless of the time of year. Everyone wants a perfect credit score of 850 or to increase their credit rating to the best possible credit score. This is the main factor lending agencies consider when extending a loan or approving credit cards. Lenders want to know your payment history and credit scores are the way they get this information quickly and easily.

What makes up a person’s credit score? How it becomes part of their credit history? A credit score is based on information gathered by the three U.S. credit bureaus: Equifax, Experion and Trans Union. Your credit score history began with the first purchase you ever made using credit. You didn’t do anything for the credit information to get into your credit history. You simply signed a credit note or credit agreement promising to repay the credit lender the funds of the loan or credit card through payments of a specific minimum amount over a specific period of time. The credit lender extending the credit, whether is was for an automobile, furniture or something else, automatically entered your credit information into the credit bureau systems and your credit payments were recorded and monitored until you paid in full. When you paid a loan in full, that account was marked “closed”. In the case of a credit card, the account would remain open as long as you are authorized to use that credit card account.

If you made no late credit payments, the credit entry became a good reference for your next purchase. All late or insufficient payments were noted and if there were many, a bad mark was placed on your credit history. As you began to use more credit, your credit history grew. The credit bureaus generated a credit score based on your credit repayments. Today, a credit score of 750 is considered a very good credit rating; a credit score over 750 is excellent while a credit scores below 600 is poor.

Boost your credit score by keeping your credit history up-to-date and making every credit card or other credit payment on time. Commit to avoid making any late credit payments. Pay off some of your credit debit completely. Reduce your overall credit debt to income ratio.

You should obtain a copy of your credit score report. Credit reports are now available, at no cost to you except postage and handling, once per year by requesting them from the credit bureaus. Check each credit entry, making certain that all credit entries actually belong on your credit record, that credit accounts you have paid off are marked ‘closed’ and clear up any errors or credit entries that haven’t been recorded properly. You might even find credit history that has not been recorded at all. The credit bureaus will send a form to request any corrections; simply fill out this form and return it by mail. After a few months, obtain another credit report and verify correction to your credit records. Check to see if you have successfully increased your credit score. By increasing your credit score even a few points at a time, you will be able to gain more buying power through prudent use of credit.

Copyright (c) FindYourCard.com

Corey
 

Two Great Ways To Boost Your Credit Score

Posted in Finance on 02/28/2011 02:20 am by
Brian Z. Barrett asked:




In this article we will take a look at some of the ways in which a person can boost credit score, which will provide them with a more sound financial basis when it comes to applying for credit in the future.

1. Getting errors deleted from your credit history within 48 hours

The only way that this can be done is through a bank or a mortgage company. What you will need to do if for example you find errors on your credit report when applying for a home loan is to get the lender to conduct a rapid rescore company. However you will need to supply the necessary documentation in order to show that the item on your credit report history is incorrect. This piece of information will need to be sent directly from your creditor.

Normally you would need to supply this information to your bank or mortgage lender for their own credit accounts. But now because you are arranging for your credit score to be improved you will often find that the interest rate they offer to you will be much better than previously.

But to use this particular service you will need to pay $50 to use it and the results that you are after may not be what you actually get.

2. Getting negative credit deleted from your credit report

Although when it comes to removing errors from your credit report can seem quite simple when it actually comes to getting a negative credit deleted can just be as simple.

Firstly the best way of getting of any kind of error from your credit report is by simply sending a dispute letter off to the credit reporting agency. As well as the dispute letter also send them through copies of any documentation that you may have to back up your dispute. This will make their job much easier when it comes to them carrying out an investigation in order to get the problem resolved. But even if you do not have any documentation to back up your dispute letter send it anyway. As under Federal Law in the US a credit bureau then has a reasonable amount of time in which they can then use in order to validate a person’s claim.

In all cases the credit reporting agency will contact the creditor directly in order to get what you are disputing verified. Once they have received the necessary information from your creditor the offending item will either removed or an accurate note made on your credit history report instead. It is generally considered that the time allowed in order for a credit reporting agency to carry out the investigation of such disputes is 30 days.

So if you are looking for a way to boost credit score ratings to provide you with a much more sound financial base then why not consider using either of the methods suggested above.

Judith
 

Boost Your Credit Rating Today

Posted in Finance on 02/22/2011 02:22 am by
Jobo Smith asked:




Everywhere you look in the news today, its always more and more bad news about the credit markets. It is very hard for even people with a decent credit score to get a loan, much less anyone with a score below 650. It used to be easy, now its hard. Everyone can boost their score, it just takes a small amount of work.

The first thing everyone should be doing in this day and age is subscribing to some kind of credit monitoring service. All the 3 main credit bureaus all offer this service, as well as many third party providers. Just type in “credit monitoring” into google and you will get a huge list. But be careful – there are tons of scam artists out there who are looking to steal your information. If you dont go with one of the 3 credit companies (Experian, TransUnion, Equifax), make sure you know and trust the company you are going to give your information to. One additional source here is your credit card company. Most of them now will monitor for you for a yearly fee. The main reason for this is to find out in real time when changes are made on your credit report. It is far far easier to fix something in real time than to find out 2 months or more down the line when a past due bill notice comes in the mail for an account you never opened.

Once this is done, they will send you a copy of your credit report. Check every line, make sure every bit of detail on that report is accurate. If you find something that does not look right, you can usually call the credit bureau and inquire for more information. If something is not right, make sure you also check with the other 2 major credit companies as well, order a copy of your report. Sometimes the error or (fraud) is uniform across all 3, sometimes not.

Either way if you detect any irregularities that would indicate some type of fraud, you have to check all 3 and alert them. If you find there is a fraudulent account that has been opened in your name, often times you will also need to report this to the local police or FBI depending on what has occurred. The representative from the credit agency will be able to tell you if a report needs to be made. One side tip – if someone fraudulently opened an account at a department store or somewhere else that you do frequent but don’t have an account with – do not shop there using credit of any kind while the investigation is going on. If you must use cash. Its harder to prove it was not you if you are actually going there and spending money with another credit card while the investigation is going on – its not illegal or anything, but just a tip to keep it simple.

Assuming you have actually checked your report, fixed (or there are no) problems, now its time to boost the score. I will list a few here, there are of course many, many more.

The first big one that most people dont know is to look on your credit card statement, find the billing cycle beginning and end date. This end date is important. Its the date that the credit card company reports your total outstanding balance to the credit agencies (aka credit reports). It is also the date they use to calculate the interest owed for the billing cycle. So – pay your credit card bill BEFORE this end date and you accomplish 2 things: 1 – the balance amount reported to the credit agencies is lower, and 2 – you will pay far lower interest over time because the interest will always be computed on a lower amount.

In essence, if you charge up 500 bucks on the first date of the cycle, then make sure you have paid it off by the cycle end date, you have “used” the credit card companies money for FREE!! Once you start doing this, its an easy way to float money for recurring stuff that has to be paid on someone elses dime for 20 days or so. In addition, make sure you have a credit card that has bonus points for charges – this adds up over time. I know people that pay the rent on a credit card, then before the due date pay the bill and thus get a free 20 day ride or so where that money is still theirs to do something else with until its time to pay back the charge.

A second thing you can make sure to do is to not ever have a larger than 50% of the outstanding credit available as a balance on a card. It seems counter-intuitive, but if they give you a $10,000.00 limit, and you use $7000.00 of it, even if you pay 2x the min payment, your credit score gets dinged. Meanwhile, your buddy, who has a credit limit of $2000.00 and a balance of $600.00 and only pays the minimum gets a bonus for NOT USING CREDIT. While its always good to pay more than the minimum balance due (usually 10% more is fine), if you are over the 50% barrier it will not matter as far as your credit score is concerned. The min payment (or excess payment beyond) is only used to calculate how much credit you might be able to handle.

If you are the type of person that does not like balances and pays off in full each month your card, you too are getting penalized (makes no sense, but it happens). If you charge up $1000.00 and pay $1000.00 each month essentially you have a balance of 0.00 (or 1000.00 depending on when you pay) – you are not getting credit for paying it all off. The best way to boost the score is to NOT pay it all off. Pay it over 3 months, or at least pay half and half. This demonstrates you can carry a balance for a few months, then pay it off. This does work and does boost your score, believe it or not.

The third and last thing I will discuss here is that every recurring bill that anyone has (mortgage, HOA fees, car payment etc) should be put on auto-pay at your bank if possible. The main reason is anything that is a fixed amount and is paid the same date every month is simply easier to auto pay it – that way it is never ever late, and is never forgotten to be paid. In addition, you save stamps and checks, and have less to worry about. Let me tell you, once you get a house, car payment, kids and all the stuff that goes with it, its easy to have 15-20 bills each month of some kind that have to be paid – and its easy to forget one until its too late.

Samantha
 

Boost Your Credit Score in 60 to 90 Days

Posted in Finance on 12/08/2010 01:45 am by
William Lathrop asked:




Everyone knows that getting back on the right tract with your credit can be a long process, but some instance results might help keep your hopes up and make sure you do not deviate.

 

3 Ways to Boost Your Credit Score Fast

Posted in Finance on 11/24/2010 10:18 am by
Mike Singh asked:




1) Deleting errors and negative items

Its a well-known fact that deleting errors appearing on your credit report will raise your credit score. But, this is usually done through a bank or a mortgage company. When you apply for a loan and notice errors, ask the loan officer to to a rapid rescore. This strategy requires that you have all your papers in order. You have to provide written documentation such as a letter stating that the account on the report is not yours, or it was paid or any evidence that is related to the same. You will be able to improve your credit score while receiving better interest terms on the loan you are applying for.

Even if you don’t delete errors through a creditor, you can submit this documentation on your own to the credit bureau. The bureau will take about 30 days to validate your claims. You should get another credit report within 60 days of sending them the documentation to verify that the negative items have been deleted from your history.

2) Piggybacking

This is a great technique that I’ve used with success in the past. It boosts your credit score quickly and permanently. But, you need to a strong relationship based on trust with someone who has excellent credit and is willing to add you to their account. An example of this would be asking that person to add you on as an authorized user to his or her credit card. When this person adds you, you will inherit their credit history. This technique works best when you are added to the other person’s oldest credit account with a perfect payment history.

3) The Round robin strategy

This is a well-known technique for building credit. This is done through secured credit cards. To begin with you put up $1000-5000 and obtain a secured credit card. Then you take out a cash advance up to 65% of the card limit. Using this amount, you open another secured card. Once again, you take out a cash advance of up to 65% of your limit. Now, you get a third secured card. With the cash advance you take out on the third card, you open up a checking account. The account will be used to make regular monthly payments. In the beginning your credit score will take a small dip because of the multiple accounts being opened close to each other. But within 120 to 180 days your score will get a big boost. I used this along with a few 0% balance transfer offers to bump up my score significantly.

Ruben
 

Boost Your Credit Score – How to Remove Inquiries From Your Credit Report

Posted in Finance on 11/06/2010 05:33 am by
Mike Singh asked:




Sometimes you may be doing everything in your power to ensure good credit score ratings for a dependable loan with low interest, but still your FICO numbers do not add up. Inquiries on your credit report are one of the many reasons why people’s credit score ratings have remained impossibly low while actually paying their dues on time and maintaining their finances in proper order.

Depending on many factors such as age and educational attainment and other items listed in your report history, a bulk of inquiries on your credit report can pull down your credit score by a wide and uncertain range of scores. So you ask how to remove inquiries from your credit report? Here’s how.

Soft Inquiry vs Hard Inquiry
The first step once you have received a copy of your credit report is to identify which among the credit inquiries you should have removed. Inquiries come from all types of people and have many purposes. When you ask for a copy of your credit report, this already actually constitutes an inquiry. The important thing to remember on how to remove inquiries from credit report, therefore, is to recognize the distinction between soft inquiries which do not damage your credit score rating, and hard inquiries which do.

Examples of hard inquiries include those from debt collection agencies and credit granters who wish to review your credit history. Make sure that your approval is always attached to those requesting hard inquiries as they lower your credit score. It is also important to ask for the addresses of the creditors from the credit bureau because these addresses will be used for you to follow up on removal requests.

Ask for Documentation
Not all hard inquiries have your permission in fact, so be sure to ask for documentation. If you are presented with a paper with your signature and which you did not understand to have included rights to make inquiries on your credit report, write to the creditors and ask them to remove their inquiries from your report, especially if you had no plans of applying for new credit in the first place and the creditors were not authorized by you. This is because FICO logic works by assuming that too many hard inquiries on your credit report are your personal and deliberate attempts to try to get more credit cards. Creditors naturally do not want people who claim more credit than they can manage, and hence multiple hard inquiries which are often done by creditors you did not solicit are damaging to your credit ratings.

Legal Action
If a creditor fails to comply with your request, especially after 30 days, and is not able to provide proof of your authorization, you may proceed to use legal measures to get those credit-score damaging inquiries out of the way. When dealing with how to remove inquiries from your credit report, a lawsuit against creditors who do not comply with your request can in fact land as much as a thousand dollars for their actions, and aside from your new-found money, they will be forced to remove their inquiries. Of course, in most cases the creditors will simply remove the inquiries, and you are left with a better credit report.

Arlene
 

Fix Bad Credit – 3 Amazing Insider Secrets That the Credit Bureaus Don’t Want You to See!

Posted in Finance on 08/18/2010 05:20 am by
Mark J Garcia asked:




The Credit Bureaus exist for one reason, and one reason only…to make money! Each and every one of the bureaus is a publicly traded company. They make most of their revenue by selling information to lending institutions, insurance companies, utility companies, credit card issuing banks, and employers.

They DO NOT make money by researching your disputes…in fact, it costs them time, money, and resources to investigate them. Is it any wonder then who the bureaus ultimately serve?

Bureau Secret #1 Credit Bureau Reports – Your 92 Scores

Reports and scores are created “on the fly” whenever they are requested by you, a creditor, or a lender. In fact, you can have up to 92 different scores…23 different scores for each Bureau: Trans Union, Experian, Equifax and don’t forget the little known “other” bureau named Innovis.

Remember your credit scores can vary drastically depending on who pulls the report and the particular profile applied to you. This Bureau process is especially problematic if you are thinking of getting a home loan or mortgage. The score you see if you request it from a major reporting bureau or an on-line service WILL be different – and probably much higher than the score you receive from a Mortgage Broker.

Why?

One reason is that when you pull a report from an online service 18 elements of identification have to match exactly. For example, all of the letters of your last name need to match. That means you are more likely to get accurate information.

When the bureaus pull reports for lenders, usually only 9 elements have to match, for example only 2 letters in your last name. So, more errors and erroneous information will appear on your score – lowering it. Why do the Bureaus provide different – and LOWER – scores to lenders?

Because they’ve decided that by reporting lower – more conservative scores to lenders, they would be less likely to be sued by lenders if the borrower defaults on the loan.

Do you think the major reporting bureaus care about showing lenders your true credit worthiness? I am here to tell you that they don’t! Matter of fact, if you would like to find out more information about how the bureaus are royally screwing over the American Consumer, I have created a newsletter that details shocking news about the 3 Major Bureaus

Bureau Secret #2 Credit Bureau Reports – Your Scores are NOT Accurate

Did you know that your score is probably inaccurate? According to a recent Public Interest Group Research study, more than 70% of Reports contain errors. Oh sure, the Bureaus say to the public that only 20% of reports contain errors, but that’s a bunch of Bureau bologna, because when they are in court under oath they admit that more than 50% of reports contain errors.

What kind of errors are probably on your report – and making you pay more for your home, auto loan, insurance, credit cards and student loans? The study found that 29% of reports contain serious errors that don’t belong including; false delinquencies that can kill your score.

41% of reports contain personal demographic information that was incorrect, outdated, or misspelled. 20% of credit reports – 1 in 5!!!! were missing major loan mortgage or other information to demonstrate the worthiness of the consumer. 26% of reports contained accounts that were in incorrectly listed as open (or) “closed by credit grantor.” When your account is “closed by grantor” it looks like you did something wrong and that’s bad for your scores.
Bureau Secret #3 What Is Your Real, Accurate, and True FICO Score?

Did you know that over 90% of the financial institutions in the world will use scores from one organization only? The name of that company is Fair Isaac Corporation or as they are more commonly known FICO.

The location where I recommend that you purchase your credit scores from is from the Fair Isaac Corporation at their main website. Now, I recommend going to a certain section of their website where you will get a true picture of why your scores are behaving the way they are

This website will not only give you the most current status of your reports, but it will also show you your FICO Scores from all 3 bureaus.

This is the only place you should ever get your scores, because your FICO scores are the ones from where most lenders will base their acceptance of your credit application.

I find it interesting that the major bureaus also have their own version of scores that they try to sell to you and I. However none of the people you are trying to get to extend you a loan will even look at those scores! It is just another example of the greedy bureaus trying to squeeze more and more money from us.

Let’s Wrap This Up…

So as you can see, there are many myths disguised as truths when it comes to credit and credit repair. There are also hidden secrets that the credit bureaus don’t want you to know. I hope that since you are now armed with this knowledge, you won’t fall victim to false information that exists out there.

Your Credit Score Insider, Mark J. Garcia

Amber
 

Removing Settled Debts from Your Credit Report

Posted in Finance on 08/13/2010 09:56 am by
Chane Steiner asked:




I believe that once you’ve paid a debt, it should be removed from your credit reports. However, the credit bureaus disagree. In fact, by law they are able to report it for up to 7 years from the date it was paid. But, here’s the good news: Also by law, you are permitted to dispute any account on your credit report that you choose.

Once you dispute an account on your credit report, the credit bureau contacts the creditor to verify the item. The creditor has 30 days to verify the account. More often than not, if the account is paid, the creditor will not bother verifying it and if the account is old, lots of times they don’t keep the records and are unable to verify it. If that happens, it must be removed from your credit reports immediately.

If the investigation results come back as “verified”, you have the right to request the credit bureau’s and collector’s method of verification. You should immediately send them a letter requesting verification. There is no limit to how many times you can dispute the account with the credit bureaus. Usually, if they are going to remove the account, they will do it with in the first couple disputes, but I’ve seen accounts be removed after up to 15 disputes. Sometimes you just have to keep on them.

You can also contact the creditor directly and ask them to remove the account. This should always be done BEFORE you pay the account. Offer to pay the account if they will promise to delete it from your credit report. Get the agreement in writing; especially if you’re dealing with a collection agency.

If you’ve already paid the account, you won’t have much negotiating power. But, it won’t hurt to ask the debt collector to properly validate the debt. Writing a debt validation letter is a great way to put pressure on the debt collector to remove an account from your credit report. Just because you’ve paid an account does not mean that you agree that the account is yours. And many times, if you have paid the debt, the debt collector will remove it from your report. All they wanted was their money. They really have no reason to leave it on your credit report and risk being sued.

Ronald
 

5 Credit Bureau Repair Tips

Posted in Favorable Rates on 06/01/2010 05:03 pm by
asked:




Mark
 

Credit Report Repair: Strategy #6 Add Good Credit

Posted in Education on 07/18/2009 04:57 pm by
CreditRepairExpert asked:


Credit Bureau credit score improvement can be accomplished by adding “good” credit. The credit bureaus often add incorrect bad credit to your credit reports resulting in lower scores, so add good credit to your scores.

Darlene

 
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