Credit Score Magic

The credit card issuers send their accounts receivable data to the credit reporting agencies on a monthly basis.  This information contains your credit limit, amount you owe (balance), minimum payment, date of last payment and payment date.  If you used your credit card that month, there will be a balance due on your statement.  When you pay your bill, your account is credited for that amount.  The issue is that you will always show a balance on your credit report, if you use your credit card and pay your statement when you receive it.

To avoid showing a balance, you need to pay your bill before the closing date of the current month. Don’t charge on your card between the date you pay and the end of the cycle or you will still show a balance.  For example, the closing date on your account is September 30.  Let’s say today is September 26 and you have charged $600 since you last statement. You can p

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Whether you are filing for bankruptcy pro se (without an attorney), or filing with a bankruptcy attorney’s assistance, you should have a current copy of your credit report. Everyone is entitled to one free credit report from all reporting agencies in any twelve-month period. There are three credit reporting agencies and you can request a report from each agency individually, or from all three at once. There are pluses and minuses to each of those options.

In most cases, each credit reporting agency will report similar information. By having all three at once you can compare the contents to ensure they each do have the right information. However, you cannot then obtain another copy for at least twelve months (unless you pay). Alternatively, you can obtain a credit report every four months by staggering your request from each reporting agency. By staggering these reports, you can pick up on any new information as it is added. Which option is best? It really depends on how complex your credit history has been. If you have a simple history, then staggering allows you to keep up to date. I

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Consumers often go to great lengths to protect their financial data. This includes encoding credit and debit cards with PINs, and online accounts with password protections. Despite this, many third-party financial institutions have been rather casual about protecting the information of their customers.

However, due to a recent ruling by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), credit report resellers will now have to take additional precautions to ensure that a consumers vital financial data doesnt fall into the wrong hands.

Under the terms of the agreement, three credit report resellers, which purchase credit reports and then combine them with additional information for mortgage lenders, will be required to strengthen their security procedures and undergo mandatory security audits for the next two decades.

These cases should send a strong message that companies giving their clients online access to sensitive consumer information must have reasonable procedures to secure it, David Vladeck, director of the FTCs Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement.

Consumers can take added precautions themselves.

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Here’s an interesting number: Almost 80% of credit reports have mistakes on them. Checking your credit report every year will help you make sure that your credit is mistake free. I use to not check my report because I just assumed that it would be right. We all know what happens when you assume.  Needless to say, I could not have been more wrong.

Curiosity Helped This Cat

When I heard about AnnualCreditReport.com a few years back I decided to get my credit report just to be curious. AnnualCreditReport.com is a site set up by the three major credit reporting agencies. It’s a place to get a free credit report from each of those agencies once a year, no strings attached.

I went to that site and found that it was really simple to use. I just picked my state and then it brought me to a page to fill out all of my information. I did have to give my social which made me a little wary, but I did some research and found that it was a secure site which made me relax.  After I filled it out, I selected that I wanted my report from all three agencies. It’s re

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Recently, many companies are starting to check up more on the credit reports of job applicants before they hire them. And these companies who perform these credit checks also point out some of the many credit report blunders they find that dissuade them from hiring applicants.

Employers, both from the government and private sectors, have started to use applicants’ credit reports as a basis for hiring in which they could also see how financially responsible an applicant before allowing them to get a position in their company. According to statistics from the Society for Human Resource Management, over 60% of employers use credit checks to screen their applicants which are a big change as compared to the 35% of them using the same method back in 2003. A

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With the news that over a million of American consumers being in the red because of their low credit scores (and that there are many more expected to join them), there is a need to making sure that you keep your own score afloat and maybe even improve it. One of the most basic ways of doing so is by monitoring your credit report more thoroughly for any errors and more frequently than the annual check up.

Credit report monitoring is a useful service any consumer could make use of. Because this is how credit users such as yourself could check if there are any errors or misinformation in your credit report, and could make any plans to counter that and minimize any potential damage. You could get your credit report every twelve months from the three major credit bureaus Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

Here are parts of your credit reports as well as their hotspots that you need to inspect thoroughly to find errors and fix them as soon as possible:

Personal Identification Info

These primarily include your name, social security number, current and previous addresses, and employment history.

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