Archive for the ‘Credit’ Category

Posted on January 9, 2010 - by admin

How to improve your Credit Scores

Out of Gas Newsletter - Issue 67 January 9, 2010

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We hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas and a festive New Year. Today we’ll be continuing our series on Credit Reports.

We’ve covered how to get your free credit report as well as How to read your credit report. Today we’ll be talking about how to improve your credit report.

Links you can Use

Not getting enough from your checking account - try this site to search for the best checking account for you.

https://www.checkingfinder.com/

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How to Improve your Credit score / Credit Report

These tips fall into categories -

1. Payment History

- Pay your bills on time.
- If you have gotten behind before make it a goal to pay them on time.

With online bill paying, paying your bills ontime is a no brainer. If you don’t use online bill paying then try to pay the bill a week early.

2. Amounts owed - your score includes the amount you owe, plus the amount of available credit you have.

- keep your balances as low as possible
- don’t move your debt around, try to pay it off
- don’t open new accounts, and don’t close accounts you already have

3. New credit -

- don’t open too many new accounts at once, build slowly

4. Other things -
- If you have a credit card you’ve had for a long time, but don’t use. Use it once in a while to make a purchase.

Make sure to report any things that aren’t correct on your credit report.

Enjoy your weekend.

Posted on January 8, 2010 - by admin

How to Read your Credit Report

How to Read your credit report.

Your credit report is broken down into sections, some of the information is self explanatory ( and some isn’t).

I.D. Section - this section includes information about you - make sure things are correct, especially the address.

The ID section includes your:
name
current address
social security number
date of birth
spouse’s name (if applicable)

Credit History Section

The history section includes just that - your open accounts (things you owe) and things you’ve paid. Along with any late payments.
Make SURE that each account is accurate.

Here is the format:

Company Name
Account Number
Whose Account - the abbreviations sometimes vary - here are some common ones.
I - Individual
U - Undesignated
J - Joint
A - Authorized User
T - Terminated
C - Co-maker/Co-signer
S - Shared

Date Opened
Months Reviewed - number of months in your history with the account
Last Activity - this could be a charge or a payment
High Credit - your credit limit - for loans this is the initial amount of the loan.
Terms - Usually the number of installments for a loan.
Balance
Past Due - shows any amounts that you are late on (past due)
Status - This indicates timeliness for payments.
Type of account -
O - Open
R - Revolving
I - Installment
These letters will vary - the next is a number that indicates how well you pay 0-9 - 0 is perfect - 9 is really bad.
Date Reported - Indicates the last time information on this account was updated by your creditor.

Collection Accounts Section - if you’ve ever heard from the dreaded collection agency, here is where they’ll be listed (for 7 years).

Courthouse Records Section - just what it sounds like. Public records include things like: Bankruptcy records,Tax liens, Judgments, Collection accounts, Overdue child support (in some states).

Additional Information

Things like former addresses, employers you’ll find here.

Inquiry Section

A list of folks that have requested your account information.

If you find out that things are not accurate then you will need to dispute the information.
The ftc includes some guidelines that are helpful - you can find that information here.

Posted on January 4, 2010 - by admin

How to get your FREE credit report

Hopefully you and your family had a wonderful holiday. We had a ton of fun here (as usual). Enjoyed some great football (and basketball) as well as some quality time with Lisa and Haley.

This week we’re going to talk about your credit report. We’ll be talking today about how to get your credit report free. On Friday we’ll talk about how to use your credit report. In the Saturday edition of Out of Gas we’ll talk about how to improve your score.

The US government authorizes each of us to get a free credit report every year from each of the three credit reporting agencies. When you request your free report you can either request all of them at once or you can choose to request one. Requesting one report would be my recommendation since you could request one now - another in 4 months, then the last in 4 months and then start again. So unless you really need monthly updates (or are paranoid), there is no reason to pay money to access something you can get for free.

How to get your FREE credit report

There are 3 ways to get your free reports.

1. You can request your credit report online by going to - AnnualCreditReport.com - one note sometimes that url doesn’t work but you can use this url - https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/order?mail

2. You can call 1-877-322-8228

3. Get this form (click here)  fill it out and mail it to:

Annual Credit Report Request Service
P.O. Box 105281
Atlanta, GA 30348-5281

Enjoy your day.

Image credit Flickr.