Life is a crazy ride and you never know where you’re going to end up next. Next year you might decide to buy a new vehicle or possibly even a new home. At all times you need to be ready to apply for credit and this means knowing your credit score.
Your credit score is a refection of your level of financial responsibility and it is how lenders decide whether or not they will run the risk of loaning you money. There are a lot of people that borrow money and never pay it back. These are the people that lenders will avoid in the future, based on their credit score.
There are also people that always pay off their debts late. Although this is not as bad as not paying off the money owed at all, it still shows that the person is not 100% responsible with paying off debt.
You need to monitor your credit score to make sure that you have a clean record and nothing has been added that shouldn’t be. Even if you have been paying off all your loans on time it does not mean that your score is optimal. Sometimes things can be added by mistake that will show up as a black mark on your credit rating. You are responsible for making sure that these mistakes get cleared up since you cannot claim innocence once the lender has checked your score.
You should send for a copy of your credit report regularly to make sure that everything looks good. If you do happen to find a mistake you should contact the creditor reporting it immediately to find out why. In many cases it will turn out to be a simple mistake at their end with their bookkeeping and will be easy to correct. In other cases it made get more complicated and you may have to call in outside help.
You’ll also need to monitor your credit score to make sure that you have not become the victim of fraud. Identity theft is at an all-time high in this country and by monitoring your credit you’ll always be sure that you are safe. If something gets reported you’ll be able to act right away to make sure that your credit cards can be canceled and you can alert the authorities right away.
Don’t take chances with your credit and your reputation. Monitor your credit score to keep you and your family safe against identity theft and reports that have been made in error.
You can try our award winning credit monitoring services for 7 days free, no obligation cancel anytime.
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We have been talking a lot about credit scores lately, and how they can effect you good and bad. We often over look what this is all based on, your credit reports. You credit reports are the backbone of all your personal financial data, you can lead all about them in our new articles section. Here are a few items that will scare even the most generous lenders.
1. You have a short sale on your credit reports. Many lenders will tell you that it will not have a negative effect on your credit scores, this is just plain wrong. It will show that the account has been settled, you paid less than you owed on the debt. This will have a sever impact on your credit rating, some say as much as a foreclosure. There is good news though, if you are in a position where you will need to do a short sale, you can ask the lender to not report the amount you paid to settle the debt, in this case it will not have an effect on your credit.
2. Many lines of credit. Lenders to not like to see that you take advantage of every line of credit you can get your hands on. Even if the accounts have small limits, they can still add up to a large amount. This will make lenders nervous that if you were to max out all these account that you would not have the ability to pay them off.
3. Co-signing someone else s debt. Again this is something that will scare lenders more often than not. If you had to cosign that means the person you have helped out is not able to get credit on his or her own credit score. Lenders see this as risky because what if that person stops making payments, will you have the means to pay that debt, and still be able to service a new loan?
4. Cash Advances. This in the eyes of the lenders can been seen as a act of desperation, it may be that you are unable to meet your finical requirements and have to dip into your credit cards to make it through the month.
These are some of the top 4 things that can appear on your credit reports that will scare off a lender. Keep in mind that they are not guarantees that you will not get credit, you will just have to be able to explain them and back them up with your own financial data.
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There are a few things you can do to increase your credit score in a short amount of time. How much time? Well that is a very tough question, some as soon as 30 days, others will take a bit longer. It can depend on how quickly your creditors report your account tot he credit bureaus.
1. Pay down your revolving accounts. Revolving accounts are things like credit cards, store cards or gas cards. FICO and Vantage scoring both put a heavy weight on credit card debt. If you can pay them down you will see a boost to your credit scores in a quick period of time. To get the maximum boost all your revolving accounts should be below 30% of the credit line.
2. Check you credit report to make sure that your accounts are showing the correct balances. This can also have a dramatic effect in a short period of time. For example if you have a store card that is approved to $1000.00 but is only showing a limit of $500.00 on your credit report, and you are carrying a $250.00 balance, you score will reflect that this account is 50% maxed out. When the reality is that it is only 25% of the available credit used. You can check this easily when you sign up for credit monitoring.
3. Ask for forgiveness. Times are tough, and creditors know this. If you have been a loyal customer for many years, and have shown over the years that you are credit worthy, you can ask to have a negative erased. If you have missed just one payment you can write a letter to the credit company explaining why you were late, and how you have been a great customer, and many times they will erase the negative from your credit report, and you will see a very nice boost to your credit score.
These three tips can really help you boost your credit score in not time flat.
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Here at Best Credit Reports.com we wan to make sure that you the customer is as up to date on any news that may effect you or your credit reports. That is what our blog is for, to bring you timely news and tips to help you learn how to maintain your credit, or how to protect yourself from ID theft.
We have added a new section of articles. We want you to have access to this area so you can learn everything you wanted to know and more about credit reports, credit monitoring, and credit scores. We will be constantly adding to this library, and hope that it will be a one stop research section for all of our customers.
Have a look around it here!
ShareA few weeks ago I wrote a blog about how large corporations when they get your information comprised are not providing you with credit monitoring. You can read it here.
This post will be purely my opinion, and I had a lot of good feedback from both sides.
First I had some people argue that companies that get hacked should not have to shell out the money to buy everyone credit monitoring. They said its not the companies fault that they are victims of theft, and malicious hacking attempts, so why should they have to pay for credit monitoring for all people effected.
Well yes, I do agree, that it is not the companies at fault, not in the least. It is unfortunate that there are people in this world in which crime is how they make their livings. This is also nothing new, criminals are around, and always have been, and I suspect they always will be. So yes I do agree that this is not the companies faults.
Where I disagree is that I feel they should at a minimum offer to pay for credit monitoring for all people effected. Why? Because we trust that our personal data is safe with these companies, and we are paying for a service, it could be an online gaming company, a hospital, a credit card company, your mortgage, etc. These companies are all for profit companies, they need our business, and they should remember that we are the customer, paying customer at that. The least they can do is to offer in good faith credit monitoring in order to protect us from any from if ID theft that may occur because our data was stolen off of their computers.
Anyways like I said before this is just my personal opinion, but I do think that we as customers should feel that secure in knowing that when we share our personal data with a company, that the company will do anything in its power to protect us in the event that their data becomes compromised.
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Ok first lets tackle what “Piggy Backing” is. This practice has been around for a very long time. Basically what it is, you loan your good credit to another person. So what would happen is say you have a awesome credit score, and you knew a person who did not have such a great score. You could add that person to an open account, and your good credit, would then pass on to the other person, thus “Piggy Backing” your credit score onto the other persons.
Piggy Backing was originally used by parents to boost their kids credit scores. It was usually harmless, and gave kids a great way to start earning a good credit file, and in turn a good credit score.
Well, like all good things, this was abused by so called credit repair companies. These companies for a fee (quite large) would rent you a persons credit to piggy back on. This would then give you an boost to your credit score, and allow you to get a loan, credit, or mortgage. The problem is that you are now using a complete stranger, who is also getting paid to allow you use their credit score to boost yours. This practice has been abused so badly that this technique is no longer used in credit scoring.
So to answer the question, no, Piggy Backing no longer works to raise your credit score. It was once a great technique to help someone in your family to get credit, or get back on to his or her feet, but it has been abused so badly that it no longer factors into credit scores.
ShareThis is a great question, and one that has a lot of confusion around it.
We recently had a this question asked by a young couple who had received a sum of money when they were married. They were wanting to buy a house in the next few years, and also wanted to pay down off all the credit card debt they had, but were told it would hurt their credit score.
First off, no it will not hurt your credit, in fact it can give you a boost to your credit. If your credit card were close to being maxed out, it would show lenders that you have very little available credit. Having little available credit shows that you are using your credit, and you are almost maxed out, this will have a negative effect on your credit.
Paying off your credit will increase your available credit, and this will help your credit score.
I think the urban legend comes from people who pay off there credit cards, (or any credit account) and then close them. This will in fact effect your credit in a negative way. What just happened is you, had a limit of say $10,000 dollars, which is applied to your total available credit. And when you shut down that account, that credit is no longer available so your overall available credit just decreased by $10,000 dollars, and that will impact you in a negative way.
So paying off your credit card, and having a zero balance on a card in good standing, and an open account will ultimately increase your credit score.
You can learn more about credit scores here.
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Best Credit Monitoring ServiceWell if you are here you found it already… But honestly that is a great question, and one I hope I can shed some light on. There are a few things you should look for when shopping for a a credit monitoring service, and with all the hype around this service the choices can get overwhelming.
1. How long has the company been in business for? You will want someone who has a long history and happy customers. We have been in the business of credit reports and credit monitoring for over 10 years.
2. Do they monitor all three credit bureaus? This is very important, many services who claim to be the best credit monitoring services actually only monitor one of your credit reports! We make sure we monitor all 3 credit bureaus.
3. Do they give you access to your credit score? This is a bit out side the scope of credit monitoring really, but its so important to know. We make sure you have unlimited access to your credit score, and you can update it as often as you like. Every day if you wanted to.
4. Notification time. How quickly will you be notified of changes to your credit reports? We will alert you within 24 hours of any changes that are made to any of your credit reports!
I really think these are some of the main points you should be looking into as you search for the best credit monitoring service you can join for you and your family. Your credit is so important, and we hope you will trust it to us to monitor for you. We have helped hundreds of thousands of people so far, and we know you will be very happy with us. We are so sure of it we will let you sign up for the service for free for 7 days.
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http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20110706a.htm
Some more great news for consumers, the FTC announced it will require that creditors inform you of your credit score if you are denied credit. Not only will they be required to tell you your credit score, they will also have to provide the credit score range in which the decision was made. So for example say you are out shopping for a new car. To get the best credit rate you could you would need a A+ credit score, a B would get you a good rate, C would be ok, and D or F would mean they would not loan to you.
Before they would generally come back and say you are approved for a rate of 6.8% but the would not be required to tell you exactly why you are in at that rate. Now you will have the right to know exactly what credit score range you will need to be in to get exactly the rate you want.
These new changes will apply to anything that uses a credit score to determine if you are to be given credit, very good news for consumers. In addition they will have to provide tell you 4 reasons as to what is hurting your credit, and tell you exactly the date and who they pulled your credit score with.
Knowing what your credit score is just got all that more powerful, and the best way to keep track of your score is to sign up for our credit monitoring service.
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A Federal tax lien is a major hit to your credit score, and before the new changes it would also stay on your credit for 7 years, even after it was paid in full. The IRS has announced that now you will be able to request that the lien be removed once it is paid in full. This is a major announcement. It will mean once you are back in good standing with the IRS you can have the lien removed, and it will not show up on your credit, or have any effect on your credit scores.
The new policy.
Prior to the new policy the IRS would release the tax lien once it was paid in full, but it would still remain on your credit report for a full 7 years from the payment date. Now the IRS will remove the lien with your request if the following requirements are meet.
The tax lien is paid in full.
You the tax payer enters into a direct debit agreement.
You convert a regular installment agreement into a debit agreement.
Once you enter a direct debit agreement, there is a probationary period in which you show that you will maintain the agreement. After that period you can request to have the lien removed.
One thing to remember is that you have to ask! This is very important as the IRS will not remove the lien automatically under any of the above circumstances, you the tax payer has to ask to have it removed. Once removed this could mean an improvement to your credit scores of up to or over 100 points. This is some great news, and it really shows how the IRS is working with you to help you solve any past tax issues you may have.
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