Mike Clover asked:




Your credit score report can be affect by more than your available credit history. We talk about how credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and any type of loan that reports to all 3 credit bureaus will affect your credit score. We don’t always talk about utility companies and how they can have a negative impact on your credit report. Here are utility companies I like to consider non-creditors. In other words these companies don’t give you a line credit, they just provide a service.

Utility companies

- Phone companies

- Electric companies

- Security companies

- Cell phone companies

- Water companies

- Gas companies

- Cable companies

- Internet Companies

Let’s assume you are having a tough time currently, and you stop paying your cable bill. The cable company will give you a little time to pay off the debt for service rendered, but will eventually turn that debt over to a collection company. The collection company in return will report that obligation to the 3 credit bureaus wanting their money. This is how it works with any of the companies mention. Once this collection reports to the credit bureaus your credit rating just dropped about 100 points. Utility companies on the other hand don’t help your credit when you are in good standing, but will also hurt your credit score if you don’t pay. Once the collection hits your credit report, and you finally decide to pay off the collection, the collection will be on your credit report for 7 years. 7 years of negative information will be on your credit report. If you don’t pay the collection, the collection company can sell the collection repeatedly to different collection companies which will ultimately drive down your credit score even more.

Pay your bills on-time

If you get behind, call your creditors immediately and work out a payment arrangement with them. They will typically work with you, especially during tough economic times. A creditor or utility company would rather get some form of payment versus nothing. If you don’t pay your bills including utility bills it will affect your credit score report. With lending getting extremely tough currently, your credit scores are more important than ever. If you have credit issues, the banks may look at your credit history as too big of a risk for there portfolio.

Don’t assume if you don’t pay utility it will not affect your credit. Because it will affect your credit, and will not go away until you pay it off. If you are unsure what is on your credit report, get a copy of your free credit score report today.

Arlene

Tarron Acuff asked:




The three major credit bureaus are Equifax, Experian, and keep information on your credit history. If you don’t have any credit it should say is that the report does not exist because no credit has been established. If they do have credit established, it will tell you what is on your report. If you should ever see something on your report that looks like fraud, Contact the fraud departments of any one of the three major credit bureaus to place a fraud alert on your credit file.

You may request free credit reports once a year from all three major credit bureaus. Your credit score is a number given to you by the three major credit bureau agencies that reflects your credit profile. At first, it would seem as though your credit score would be the same at all three major credit bureau companies, but in fact all three scores can be different. Credit scores are improved by having the right type of credit, showing responsible use and not having too much credit.

Let’s say, find that some information in your credit report that is incorrect, you may to dispute that information to have it corrected. To file a dispute, you have to attach a copy of your credit report and mark the incorrect items. You most likely will have to prove that the information is false. You should mail the dispute letter as certified mail and always keep copies for yourself. Just like most data you need to have a backup in case you would need to prove what you had sent. Your letter should include your complete name and address, clearly identify each item you dispute, explain why you dispute the information, and request deletion or correction.

Nathaniel

Jeremiah Perez asked:




Experian – TransUnion – Equifax

There are 3 major private, for profit Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA’s) also known as Credit Bureaus who gather information about consumer credit and their usage. The three major credit agencies are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. They accumulate all consumer financial transactions and inquires from all possible sources. The Bureaus then package all of the financial transactions and inquires into a structured format which produces a report and score. For a fee, this information is then available to any legally recognized individual or organization which you have provided permission to usually in the form of an application. This score also known as your credit score is called VantageScore when ordered from Experian or TransUnion and FICO score when ordered from Equifax. All 3 reports will provide you with a complete look at your score, history, loan balances, and creditor inquires. The legally recognized individual or organization which you have given authorization to pull your credit score, sometimes only contacts one of the 3 bureaus to inquire on your credit history. However, in order to obtain a complete picture of your current position, a report from all 3 bureaus must be ordered. This report has several names such as triple credit score, three credit scores, 3 bureau credit report, or all in one credit report. Below is the appropriate contact information in order to dispute an error you found on any of your reports.

Credit Bureau Contacts –
Main addresses and telephone numbers

Equifax Credit Information Services, Inc.
P.O. Box 740256
Atlanta, GA 30374
Customer Service 1-866-640-2273
Report fraud 1-888-766-0008

Experian National Consumer Assistance Center
P.O. Box 2002
Allen, TX 75013
Main line 1-800-397-3742
Alternative line 1-800-493-1058

TransUnion Consumer Solutions
P.O. Box 2000
Chester, PA 19022
Main line Customer Service 1-800-888-4213
Human operator 1-800-916-8800

Tip: It is important to pull all 3 reports in order to view your entire financial position as creditors do not all report to each of the 3 Credit Reporting Agencies(CRAs)!

Joyce

Tim Bock asked:




Many times people are unaware of exactly what’s in their credit report, let along if there’s a collection account in there. There are usually 1 or 2 reasons why a collection account may exist.

- The account went to collections
- Mistaken identity

Fortunately it’s not the end of the world. There are steps that can be taken to get the collection off of your credit for good.

Get a copy of your credit report

There are 3 main credit bureaus where you can obtain a copy of your credit report. These are as follows:

- Equifax
- Transunion
- Experian

Dispute the findings

Each credit bureau operates separately. Therefore having the account deleted from one does not automatically mean it will disappear from all 3. Lenders do look at all three credit reports, so it’s extremely important to follow up with all of them. Not doing so will affect your ability in getting a loan.

Do it in writing

It’s important to mail your dispute in. Do not try to do it over the phone. Writing gives you documentation in case you need it. After they received the dispute, they will investigate the matter. If the investigation is not resolved within the allotted amount of time, the item will automatically be deleted from your credit report.

Fair credit reporting act

Become familiar with this law, before you contact the credit bureaus. It could save you a lot of time and trouble. It’s important to get the facts, so you have all the tools at your disposal when going up against the credit bureaus.

Tamara

Justin Hutto asked:




NCO Financial is a collection agency. They work with financial services, healthcare, utilities, education and more.

They have been in business since 1926. They do both first party and third party collections.

They are located in 9 different countries with over 140 operation centers. They are headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania.

They claim to be customer oriented and committed to integrity, teamwork and quality.

NCO Financial has the authority to do credit reporting. Meaning they can make negative listings on your credit report. If this happens your credit score will be lowered.

However there is hope, you can have this listing removed. There are two options to have a listing removed from your credit report.

1. You can dispute the listing with the credit bureau directly.

You can do this yourself by sending a dispute letter to the credit bureaus. Or you can hire a credit repair firm to handle the dispute process on your behalf.

If you do this yourself you must send a dispute letter to each credit bureau disputing the validity of the negative listing. Common reasons for a dispute are: the account has been paid, not your account, or the listing is inaccurate.

2. You can pay NCO Financial. I would recommend disputing the listing first and then if that is unsuccessful consider paying.

However before you pay you should negotiate a settlement offer. Often you do not have to pay the full amount. I would suggest offering 50% of the balance.

Also make sure that you have in writing that NCO Financial will remove the negative listing from your credit report in exchange for payment. Otherwise the listing will remain on your credit report and making payment will not help improve your credit score.

You should also be aware that NCO Financial may not be the only company reporting a negative listing for this account. The creditor may also have reported this account as a negative listing too.

It is common for collection agencies to sell accounts that they are unsuccessful collecting on. Thus NCO may have sold your account to another collection agency that has created a negative listing on your credit report too.

If you have the same account reported more than once on your credit file then I would suggest consulting with a professional credit repair firm because making payment to one company will not remove all the negative listings on your credit report.

However if the debt is legitimate and you decide to make payment, do not pay the full amount. Collection agencies buy your account for pennies on the dollar. Thus you are giving them a huge profit if you pay 100% of the balance.

Also do not be fooled into believing that NCO has the authority to remove a negative listing from the creditor or another collection agency.

I would recommend having all communications with NCO in writing. This way if there is a breach of your settlement agreement you have written documentation.

In sum, make sure that if you do settle that you have written documentation that the listing will be removed from your credit report in exchange for payment.

Doris

Robert Humphrey asked:




1. Introduction: The FACT Act

As of December 1st, 2004, a new federal law became effective called the FACT Act. This acronym stands for Fair & Accurate Credit Transaction Act. The main thing to understand is it means more change. The changes are for individual consumers, businesses, and the three (3) major credit bureaus. We will focus on the consumer and credit bureau changes for the purposes of this publication. If you need more information for the protection of your business, please consult with your legal counsel.

Here are some of the more notable changes:

Changes in credit information management for businesses, including criminal penalties Changes in credit dispute procedures & corrections, including cross-bureau corrections for consumers Changes in availability of personal credit information for your review (read they’re finally going digital) for consumers The objectives for this article are focused on educating the consumer to understand their options under the new law and include: Educate you on how Identity Theft is changing personal credit issues Educate you about your consumer rights & procedures for correcting erroneous credit information Educate you on how to stay on top of things for your financial security, so you can be more proactive in protecting you and your family


2. Before: Problems No One Wanted (& No One Seemed To Want To Address)

If you have ever tried to get erroneous credit information removed from one of your credit bureau reports, you know just how hard it has been to accomplish. One of the other credit bureau problems many of us have been through was trying to get one of the bureaus to correct a problem, and then get the subject credit bureau to communicate with the other two major credit bureaus. This was nearly impossible if you had to go through it yourself (and I had). One of the worst parts was that there seemed to be very little a consumer could do to challenge the three (3) major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). The coup de gras was that if you didn’t have, or couldn’t acquire, the documentation the credit bureaus requested, you had very little chance to get the error or problem corrected. One of the other issues that has seemed to plague consumers who wanted to monitor their credit information has been cost. If you wanted to get your current credit reports, you had to pay money out of your own pocket just to monitor your information. Although many states had state laws to allow consumers one (1) free credit report per year, many consumers weren’t aware of this. The net effect was that most consumers rarely learned they had a problem until they had their credit bureaus pulled for a consumer transaction or application for credit. At that point if there was an unknown surprise, it was not uncommon for the consumer to receive a decline for the credit transaction.

Another major problem was that although you would think there would be strong laws in the past to protect consumer credit, the consumer protection laws on the books were not really effective. Many had concluded that a stronger deterrent to businesses mismanaging consumer credit information was needed as identity theft was increasing. So as identity theft began to explode in frequency and severity, there was a strong current of opinion to put some teeth into protecting consumers more. As soon as mismanaged credit information was tied to some cases of attempted identity theft & fraud as well as [criminally] successful cases, Congress finally acted. The result of their action was the new federal law called the FACT Act.

3. Massive Increases in ID Theft and Fraud Push Us over the Edge

You’ve all seen the incredible news on the television or in the newspapers about major financial institutions losing data archives in transit from their headquarters to their offsite storage location. This has happened so many times that the headlines don’t even startle anymore. Is that scary or what? We’re losing millions of records, or rather millions of may be lost or stolen, it seems like every month at least. Do you know what the really scary part is? In California, they have a law that says that if your credit records have the possibility of having been compromised, you must be informed. What if the loss or theft occurs in another state where the same laws don’t exist? That’s right. The credit bureaus may or may not notify based on the other state’s laws. So if you’re thinking that we may not be notified every time credit information might have been compromised, you would probably be right.

So how do these mass credit information compromises occur? Well, it can happen in many ways. Sometimes it happens because of an inside theft ring, at a credit card company for instance. Other times it’s just mismanagement or poor handling of client’s information, the loss of data backups for instance. One of the classic scams has been theft of credit information at a business establishment you had patronized.One of the scariest ideas that must be considered is that there are new scams being produced all of the time. Some intelligent, bright criminals are always working on new types of scams. It sounds crazy, but you may never be able to keep up with all of the scams. It is for this reason that you must become proactive in monitoring your credit information, at least until there are some step-changes in the way the current credit system is managed and maintained.

Consumer Changes

•• Go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com/

•• Rolled out in western states 1st

•• Was across whole country by September 1st, 2005

•• One free report from each bureau/yr

•• Online credit information dispute resolution system

•• Automatic required supply of revised credit data to other credit bureaus

•• Protection thru severe penalties for credit data users

•• Can also use 877-322-8228

Further Info:FACT ACT Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003 FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR Part 682FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT Ellen Finn or Susan McDonald, Attorneys, (202) 326-3224, Division of Financial Practices, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580.

Caroline

Ed Nailor asked:




Did you know that your credit score can vary depending on who pulls your score and why? Imagine this…. You need a new car and are thinking of buying a home too. You do your homework and pull your score online directly from the credit bureaus. Your score online is 650. The car dealer tells you your score is 619 and your mortgage officer says your score is 694. Why the different scores? What causes such discrepancies?

Lets look at 3 items that can make your score vary.

1. Which credit bureau was the credit pulled from?

There are 3 major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. Each bureau collects information as reported by your creditors. However, your creditors may not report to all 3 bureaus. This means that you may have different information in each bureau. Different information can make for different scoring outcomes.

2. There are differences in scoring models.

A scoring model is the formula used to create your score. Fair Isaac is the company that creates the models for the 3 bureaus. While there are 3 different bureaus, each bureau can have different models of scoring. Think in terms of computer programs… one program may go through updates and changes (version 3.0 and then 4.5.) Both versions work, but have different options based on the version. The same principal works here. The bureaus may be using different versions of scoring models depending on who pulls the credit.

3. What was the reason for the credit inquiry?

One more factor may be the reason your score was pulled. You see, buying a home should require different parameters that getting a credit card or buying a car. Each one of these will weigh different factors of your credit file more heavily. For example, a credit card company will want to factor revolving credit more heavily that a car loan. This way they will have a better indicator of how you will handle the new revolving credit card they are considering giving you. So the reason for your credit inquiry (mortgage, loan, credit card, ect.) will impact what makes your score up. Note: Federal law now requires that all 3 bureaus make a free copy of your credit report available to everyone. Since there are no others reasons for the inquiry the score will be generic based on all your credit, not a score potential creditors will use in their decisions.

Does this all seem confusing? Well unfortunately it is. Federal law now requires that when a credit inquiry is performed, you have the right to know the score and the indicators that helped make up that score. With the new laws enacted Congress is trying to make things better. Still, the best way to overcome these discrepancies is to build a solid credit file!

Leo

Jeanette Joy Fisher asked:




It’s not well known, but if you have recently applied for mortgage credit, the information you shared was probably sold within twenty-four hours of your mortgage application. Credit reporting agencies commonly sell what they term “trigger lists” of folks who have recently contacted mortgage lenders for rates or loan preapproval and have given loan officers permission to check into their credit.

These leads are being bought by data marketing companies who then resell the information to lenders who are interested in trying to entice you to use their lending services. The information the data marketing companies provide is valuable, because it tells lenders everything about your creditworthiness before lenders pitch you their offers.

One such company is Mortgage Inquiry Data, which tells lenders that they can provide access to every potential borrower who applies for a mortgage loan within twenty-four hours of the original request, making them prime candidates for lending services in the immediate future. Another company, Intellidyn, offers what it calls IntelliAlert, which provides similar valuable information to prospective lenders.

The data is worth a great deal to lenders, and comes with a hefty price tag. For instance, Intellidyn charges $31,395/month for its “platinum” level information, for which Intellidyn promises to let lenders know about every mortgage inquiry or application in any designated area in the U.S.

Just what other sort of information is being sold?

Mortgage Inquiry Data also sells: credit scores open mortgage balances monthly payments loan-to-value rations revolving credit card balances personal credit information besides just marketing application information.

All this leads to ethics questions in the minds of many bankers, who generally have to pay to get the information, only to then see it sold to other lenders who may be in direct competition with them for home loans.

Of the three major credit reporting firms, Equifax and Experian have publicly confirmed that they sell trigger lists within twenty-four hours, but TransUnion has yet to comment. However, Equifax and Experian both state that such lists aren’t in violation of any laws. Instead, they view them as simply fresher versions of preapproved credit lists they have routinely sold to lenders for many years.

One of the most disturbing things about this process is that even if you don’t want your credit information shared, there’s currently no option available for refusing to allow it to be sold. However, consumer protection agencies in several states are looking into the practice, and you can personally express your disapproval by contacting the Federal Trade Commission.

Copyright

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Marc Marseille asked:




A 3 credit bureau report can be useful for various reasons. There are 3 key credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, and each of them have their own knowledge about your credit, so to obtain a good credit score, you need all three.

Several financial institutions require a good score with all 3 credit agencies before they will approve you. For example, a house loan won’t be approved if you have a bad credit rating from 2 out of the 3 bureaus. You also will not qualify for low cost life insurance, a credit card with a low interest rate, or some cases even an apartment. In essence, knowing your three score can save you time from applying to services which you already know you will not be approve for.

Another advantage about knowing your 3 credit bureau report score is that it can show you if somebody has been defrauding you or hijacking your credit profile. If, for example, somebody has been opening accounts in your good name without your knowledge, that information will show up on your 3 credit score report as derogatory. The knowledge of this information will allow you to take legitimate action to get the derogatory items removed from your credit bureau report.

There are many ways you can enhance your credit rating, but none of these tactics can be implemented if you do not know your credit score. One solution to improving your score is to acquire a couple secured visa cards and pay off your bills before they are due. If you continually pay off your balances in a timely manner, this will affect your credit score in positive way.

In addition to paying your bills on time, maintaining a low balance on your revolving accounts and credit cards are mandatory. High balances reflects someone who is strap for money which creditors tend to stay away from. You may be surprised at how many points your credit can rise by simply reducing your balances.

In the long run, it is worth it for you to keep your credit in good standing, because it means you will be able to qualify the things that are important to you. The ability to stay on top of your finances does not have to be difficult, the main thing is not living beyond your means. The more discipline your are now, the more rewards you will receive in the future.

Theodore

Samantha Monroe asked:




People who are keen on maintaining high credit score know the importance of a credit report. Having a very detailed credit report is the first step towards ensuring your credit score remains high.

Getting a detailed report from any of the bureaus may cost you some money. If you are really serious about keeping a check on your report, then you would know you need a real report and won’t find it difficult to spare $20 to get a very detailed report.

After getting a detailed report, you should continue in that same vein by going through the report with a fine comb and identifying EVERY wrong entry no matter how small. Every entry that is incorrect should and must be corrected for the sake of your credit score. NEVER over look anything.

Now you have all the wrong entries you have found and are ready to dispute. One important thing to bear in mind is that your letter MUST be concise because the bureaus have a huge amount of letters to treat so they do not need long letters as any such letter stands a risk of not being processed.

One big problem you may face is using the right identifying information for a given bureau as different bureaus have different identifiers. Send the right information to the right bureau.

Another sad truth here is that many people have tried to dispute without success and have had to repeat a number of times. Your letter may not even be processed so you should be ready and willing to keep sending.

Disputing a credit report, removing a judgment or generally repairing your credit does not have to be such a drag or a mission impossible. You can engage the services of professionals to take the burden off you while achieving results you may never be able to achieve on your own. Save yourself the heartache and disappointment of having you credit bureau dispute letter rejected or not processed by allowing professional handle it for you.

Judith