Leadpile's Blog» FICO

Do You Know What Your Credit Score Is?

Mari Woods Holt — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:21:57 +0000

Let’s face it, the economy is in a slump and this is affecting people being able to pay their bills amongst many other things. The good news is, that the economy is going to get better, which means lenders are going to start lending again AND credit will be extended to consumers again. However, if you do not have your credit in check, you will not be able to take advantage of this. The first thing to do, when trying to fix your credit, is understand what your credit score is AND what makes up that credit score. First, you need to understand who the credit reporting agencies are that are gathering this information. The three credit reporting agencies are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Secondly, you need to understand what a good and bad FICO (also known as a credit score) is. A credit score can be between 300 and 850. The higher your credit score, the better. Finally, you need to read your credit report and understand what is on it. To understand it, you must know the main things that make up your credit score:

1. How you pay your bills- your payment history on your credit cards and loans is the biggest factor in making up your score. This means if you have not paid your bills on time, now is the time to start.

2. What do you owe on your credit cards and loans- if you have your balances maxed out on all your creditors, this will negatively affect your credit score. Stopping charging immediately if the balances are close to their limits.

3. How long have you had each of your creditors-the newer the credit, the more it will negatively affect you. If you are applying for new credit cards, stop now to help your credit score. Keep a few creditors for a long period of time and that will help your score.

4. Do you have all sorts of creditors like car loans, credit cards, installment loans etc-the credit bureaus likes to see a diverse selection of creditors. This is not a major factor in your credit score, but something to think about if you are thinking about getting a new creditor.

Leadpile is currently working on generating this sort of lead and will welcome publishers that will eventually be interested in connecting those consumers that want to know their credit score, with the company that will be able to provide this service. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!

What Does And Doesn’t Hurt Your Credit Score?

Mari Woods Holt — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:10:47 +0000

Do you know what your credit score is? How about do you really know what makes up the score? Knowing as much as you can about your credit score and what makes up the number, is so very important. Many employers, insurance companies etc all utilize a consumers credit score to help to determine their desire to work with you. Therefore, knowing as much as possible can only help with being able to understand and manage your credit score. For many situations, your credit score is just as important as your other personal information, so knowing it inside and out is key!

Things that should not impact your credit score:

Having a Low or High Income: How much money you make is not necessarily being reported on your credit bureau, therefor will not be a part of any decisions that third parties are making after seeing your report. However, keep in mind employer information is often times showing on your credit report.

Not Paying Insurance, Utility and Cell Phone Bills: Many insurance or utility companies will pull your credit to see your credit score, however they will not be reporting your pay history with them on your credit.

Missing Rent Payments: Similar to the insurance and utility companies, property management companies will pull your credit before allowing you to rent from them, however if you miss your rent of were a slow payer, you will generally not see any of this on your credit report or affecting your credit score.

Bank Overdraft: Banks make a lot of their revenue from bank overdraft fees, however they will generally not report any issues with overdrafting you had, unless you continued to maintain an outstanding overdraft amount owed to them. At this point they will then send the “debt” to collections who will then try and collect on this outstanding amount. At this point it will affect your credit score.

Checking Your Own Credit: Pulling your own credit score is a great thing because it allows you to know what is on your credit and who is reporting what. However, you pulling your credit score will not affect your credit score. Third parties pulling your credit does affect your credit score and you want to be conscious of who you are allowing to do this. If you have too many inquiries in your credit report, it is a red flag to those that are potentially looking at extending you credit and it is also hurting your credit.

High Interest Rates:What you are paying on credit cards or other debts is no where located on your credit report and is not affecting your credit score. Third parties will only know this if you release this information.

Credit Counseling: This could potentially affect your credit and credit score if the counseling service you are working with is not paying on your bills. Knowing what the counseling service is reporting to your credit report is key so you know what others will be seeing if they are pulling your credit.

Your Age: Your physical age in no way affects your credit score. If you are young and do not have a lot of credit, then that can affect your credit score, but your actual age is not the direct cause of having a lower or higher score.

Now go pull your credit and work on getting that score up!

Fico Score Seeing Some Changes

Mari Woods Holt — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:10:15 +0000

In recent news the Fair Isaac Corporation is rolling out an updated FICO score. A FICO score was created back in 1989 to help consumers and businesses determine consumer’s credit worthiness. All 3 credit reporting agencies (Transunion, Equifax, and Experian) will be implementing this new scoring.

Some things that are changing with the newly updated FICO score:

1. Ignoring of small collection accounts

2. One credit problem forgiven

3. Changes to authorized users and how it affects your credit score

Things you will want to now pay attention to with regards to your score:

1. The more credit you use in regards to your balances versus credit limits will affect you more now.

2. Don’t close $0 balance accounts now. Keep them open and don’t use them.

3. You will be penalized if the lenders close your accounts. To prevent this, charge one time per month to keep activity going if you want to keep the account.

4. Diversify what credit accounts you have active. For instance, have some installment accounts (IE- CAR loans etc) AND revolving credit. This shows you are able to maintain both types of credit.

Fair Isaac is hoping these changes will help with getting a better depiction of credit worthiness. Lenders will like it more because there is going to be a more precise score of their credit. Consumers will like it more because if that score is higher, that makes the cost to get more money (loans and new credit) cheaper. The better your FICO score is, the more credit you have available and the lower your rates will potentially be to borrow money. This seems to be a win win situation for consumers and businesses.

Leadpile Lead Exchange wants to help consumers and businesses to be connected with regards to any financial matter. This new FICO score will most likely promote more consumers to want to take a deeper look at their scores and how they can maybe get them higher. Credit repair companies are probably a really good option to look at to help do that.