Feb
7
All About Your Credit Report
February 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Your credit report is information about you which is used by lending agencies in their determination as to whether or not to extend you more credit. Your credit report will including personal information, employment information, and credit information. There are three credit report agencies which regularly gather information and update their reports. Due to discrepancies in collection and reporting, the three credit report agencies may have slightly different information about you. Regular monitoring of your credit report is important in maintaining good credit.
Inside the credit report
Your credit report contains information about you as a person, you as an employee and you as a borrower. The personal information on your credit report is gathered from your previous credit applications. This credit report information includes your full name, mailing and residential addresses, social security number, and birth date. Information on your employment history, earning status and current employer will also be in the credit report.
Perhaps more important than this basic information is the information in the credit report which describes you as a borrower. Any financial problems which are of public record, including any bankruptcy filing, home foreclosures, automobile repossessions and court judgments against you which deal with finances are all potential for inclusion in the credit report. The credit report will also show your history of credit applications and inquiries. Frequent applications are considered negative by most lenders.
Credit report agencies
There are three major credit report agencies: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. When a lender receives a loan application from you, the lender will obtain your credit report from one of these three agencies. The three agencies usually have the same information about you; however, discrepancies in information gathering and reporting may lead to slight differences in the information in each credit report.
Monitor your credit report
Your credit report is the major factor used in determining whether or not you qualify for a credit card or loan. For this reason, it is important to regularly monitor your credit report, checking for errors including delays in clearing problems. For example, if you have paid off a loan which shows as outstanding on the credit report, you should contact the credit report agency and repair the report to reflect your better credit. Everyone is entitled to receive one free credit report each year from each of the three agencies, available on request to the credit report agency. Any time that you are denied for a loan application, you are also entitled to a free credit report. Checking the credit report can improve your credibility as a borrower and increase the likelihood of being able to borrow when you need to do so.
Martin Lukac, represents http://www.RateEmpire.com, a finance web-company specializing in real estate/mortgage market. We specialize in daily updates, rate predictions, mortgage rates and more. Find low home loan mortgage interest rates from hundreds of mortgage companies! Visit http://www.RateEmpire.com today.
Popularity: 1%
Feb
6
Do It Yourself Credit Repair
February 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment
The basics of “do it yourself” credit repair are very simple. The idea is to remove inaccurate information from your credit report. The information that many companies charge for or include as “free reports” attached to some other report that they are charging for can be found easily. Free credit repair information is available from various organizations. Real free credit repair services do not exist.
Do it yourself credit repair software is being sold on the internet. Do it yourself credit repair information is being sold in the form of conventional and e-books. Sometimes free credit repair information is used as “bait” to attract interest in subscriptions to “credit info” magazines and newsletters. Often this information that companies are charging for is worthless. Free credit repair information is available from the Federal Trade Commission.
Do it yourself credit repair is possible if you have three things to invest; time, patience and know-how. Step one is to obtain personal credit reports from the three major credit bureaus. At one time this was a time consuming process in and of itself, but a recently enacted law has made at least this part easier. Consumers can now obtain copies of their credit reports from all three major credit bureaus at one website; www.annualcreditreport.com. This is free credit repair information that anyone can use, but misspellings will lead to impostor sites that are only trying to sell more stuff. It is understandable that companies want to make money, but to purposely mislead consumers seems wrong somehow.
The next step to do it yourself credit repair is to evaluate the information on those credit reports. Beware, they are not easy to read, they may be several pages long and the company names that are listed may be unfamiliar. At this point, those who are easily overwhelmed give up, but the hardy keep going. They start writing the necessary letters or contacting the credit bureaus over the internet when possible. Even do it yourself credit repair is not free credit repair. It costs valuable time for one thing. In those situations where letters are necessary, it costs postage, of course. And, other than the annual free report, the credit bureau will charge for each subsequent report that is needed to verify that items have been removed.
If your credit is not that bad and you only have a couple of items to be removed, then do it yourself credit repair may work for you. If, on the other hand, you have numerous items causing you problems, then do it yourself credit repair will be frustrating, time consuming and possibly ineffective. The credit bureaus may ignore requests that are not “worded” correctly and although they are required to investigate within thirty days, they sometimes ask for more information. Once that information is received, they have another thirty days to investigate. What at first seems like a free credit repair solution may turn into a nightmare.
There are reasonably priced options to do it yourself credit repair. This may not be free credit repair, but it will be effective credit repair. Although there are many companies which offer credit repair services, a legal firm, specializing in credit repair issues can offer the most effective services. If you choose a company that does not consist of a legal team familiar with credit law, then you may still end up disappointed. If you choose to try do it yourself credit repair, you may be disappointed. If you choose the right credit repair service, the only thing you will end up with is a better credit score. For more free credit repair information, visit the Credit Repair Blog.
The writers and editors of the Credit Repair Blog are committed to providing accurate information about bad credit repair. Visit us at http://creditfixnow.blogspot.com
Popularity: 2%
Feb
4
Credit Report - 5 Secrets Credit Bureaus Don’t Want You to Know
February 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment
If you’ve ever applied for a loan or credit card, chances are your lender acquired and examined a copy of your credit report before deciding whether or not to grant you credit.
Your “Credit Report” is a record of your credit history and it’s prepared by agencies called “Credit Bureaus”, or “Consumer Reporting Agencies.” These are private organizations and have no affiliation with the United States (or any) government. There are 3 major credit bureaus in the United States (2 in Canada) and their names are Experian, EquiFax, and Trans Union.
Did you know that credit reporting is a multi-billion dollar a year industry? It’s true! The credit bureaus are for-profit organizations that generate billions of dollars in revenue each year from selling copies of credit reports to creditors and mailing lists.
Your credit report affects more than your financial life. It could affect your education, career, and even your relationships. Your credit report is used not only by lenders and creditors, but also by auto, life, and home insurers, future employers, and even some educational institutions. It affects the interest rates you’ll pay on everything!
So as you can see, your credit report can have a critical impact on many facets of your life. For example, because of a bad credit report you could be forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars MORE in loan interest over the life of your home mortgage. This is no exaggeration!
Since the credit bureaus prepare and distribute your credit report to lenders, they clearly wield a great deal of power over both your financial and personal life. But it would be a grave mistake to be intimidated by them, or to think that you have no choice but to live with the negative effects of a bad credit report.
In fact, there’s plenty you can do!
Always remember; Knowledge is power! There’re a few facts the credit bureaus would rather you don’t know. Let’s take a look at them, and you’ll see why.
1. Credit reports are filled with errors!
It will probably astonish you to learn the percentage of credit reports that contain errors. While there seems to be some disagreement, estimates range from 1 out of every 3 (on the low end) to as high as 90%! Here’s a “run down” on error estimates.
Percentage of Credit Reports Than Contain Mistakes
Attorney General of NY 1/3
Consumers Union 48%
US Congress 1/2
Charles Givens Organization 90%
So no matter who you believe, it’s clear that way too many credit reports have errors. So even if you think you have good credit, it might be well worth your while to get a copy of your credit report and take a careful look at it.
2. The law is on your side!
In 1972 Congress passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to curb abuses by the credit bureaus. The FCRA is the governing federal law on the issue of credit reporting.
Under the FCRA, you have the right to dispute negative information in your credit report. The credit bureaus then have 30 days to verify the disputed information with the creditor. If they cannot (or do not) verify the disputed information within 30 days, it must be deleted from your credit report.
3. Even accurate data in your credit report must be deleted if it’s not verified.
If you’ve done any research into credit repair you’ve no doubt run across statements to the effect of “Negative data in your credit report that is accurate cannot be removed.” As stated above, the FCRA stipulates that any disputed information must be verified within 30 days, or it must be deleted. The “burden of proof” (in a manner of speaking), is on the credit bureaus.
4. Credit repair DOES WORK in most cases!
You’ll hear all kinds of opinions as to whether “credit repair” (i.e. efforts to improve your credit report) can be successful. The truth is, credit repair doesn’t always work perfectly. But in almost every case the process of credit repair will result in at least SOME improvement in your credit score, and most often that improvement is substantial. So credit repair does work!
Now you may be wondering why repairing your credit score would be of any concern to the credit bureaus. After all, don’t they make money by compiling and distributing credit reports regardless of whether those reports are negative or positive?
Well, yes they do, BUT…they also make money (a GREAT DEAL of money) selling names of people with poor credit, to creditors who have a specific interest in those people.
So why would some creditors want to bother with people who have poor credit? Because they know they can charge higher interest rates to those people, because the “bad credit risks” have no choice but to pay those exorbitant rates or forgo credit altogether!
Besides, investigating disputed information costs the credit bureaus time, manpower, and money. They have nothing to gain, and plenty to lose, when people take the initiative and dispute negative information on their credit report.
5. It’s perfectly legal to hire third party help to repair your credit.
There are plenty of “Credit Repair Agencies” who will help you repair your credit. But if a credit bureau even suspects you’re using such an agency, it’s likely they’ll try to discourage you from doing so. In some cases they’ll even go so far as to send you a letter stating that use of such agencies is illegal.
Such statements are (to put it as politely as possible) garbage! In fact there are laws that regulate such agencies. Now laws don’t exist to regulate illegal activity, except to ban it! When was the last time you saw laws that regulate what cocaine dealers must do to operate within the law?
Once again, repairing a bad credit report just isn’t in the best interest of the major credit bureaus. But unless you happen to be the CEO of one of those bureaus, the most important question as far as you’re concerned is “What’s in MY best interest?”
First of all, get a copy of your credit report and examine it. You can get a free copy of your report at http://www.annualcreditreport.com.
Secondly, take steps to improve your credit report. You can go about it in one of two ways.
1. Hire third party help.
If repairing your own credit report sounds too intimidating, there are plenty of credit repair agencies that will do it for you. But if you take this approach, there are three things you need to know.
First, they’re not cheap. Expect to pay from $2,500 to $5,000 for an attorney or $795 to $2,000 or more for a credit repair agency. Secondly, they don’t always do it right! Some will manage to get the negative data on your credit report removed while actually doing damage to your “credit score” (a calculated number used by creditors to evaluate you credit worthiness.) Finally, many are outright scams!
That’s not to say you shouldn’t hire third party help. If you do your “home work,” ask for references, and carefully select a reputable credit repair agency, you’ll be much better off than if you had done nothing. Still, if you’re willing to do a little work, there’s a much better alternative.
2. Repair you own credit report.
Anyone can fix their own credit report. If you can write a few letters, address, stamp, and mail them you can repair your own credit. There’re plenty of good books available that can walk you thought the whole procedure, and once you’re done a little study, you’ll be surprised at how simple the process is.
Bad credit will cost you many thousands of dollars and limitless anxiety. Even if you have fair credit, fixing you credit could still save you thousands in interest payments over the years.
Get a good book on the topic of credit repair, and get started fixing your credit report today! And don’t be intimidated by the credit bureaus. Remember, the law is on YOUR side!
Jim Eastman is support contact for ErasingBadCredit.com, a site dedicated to helping people repair their bad credit. If you have bad credit, visit ErasingBadCredit.com and sign up for free mini-course on repairing your credit report.
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