www.annualcreditreport.com
- Thread starter Toshi
- Start date
Definitely. And go over everything else with a fine tooth comb. That's how I figured out my ex had opened up a joint account with my name after we split up :mumble: :mumble: (I had another account with the same people so didn't catch my eye right away).Acadian said:
what number did you call? can you e-mail of PM that to me please?Toshi said:
thanks!
Yep - just received my reminder to get mine. 
I have to agree with Manimal here. We recently applied for some credit lines for a business we opened. We had several accounts with very high limits, ( 10-20K) but zero balances. Our score came out off because of the increased potentialfor risk. I ended up taking a few hour to call various accounts and have them reset the limits to much lower ( example, dept store card had a 6K limit, I've never spent more than $300 at a time and never carried a balance, so I has them reset the limit to $800)
My report from one agency shows a positive report from Duquesne Electric from when I lived in Pittsburgh in 1991-1994. I have no idea why it's even on there, it's the only utility I've ever seen on any credit report.
i think this is an exceptional case, because you opened several new accounts at the same time. in general, it remains true that using a lower percentage of your total available credit helps your credit score.
http://homebuying.about.com/cs/yourcreditrating/a/improve_score.htm
bump. equifax is down at the moment but everything else is as it was.bump for annually-relevant info. i just d/led my 3 credit reports
remember to click "no thanks" to get things for free without extra add-ons for credit scores 'n junk.
aren't you supposed to be good with money to be in your field? $120/yr is a lot more than free, and, horror stories in the media aside, identity theft and spurious entries on one's credit report are rare beasts...
I've had a few bad hits and medical billing issues that incorrectly and negatively effected my credit. Given that I use my credit rating to make nearly $1000 per year risk-free, it is very important to me that there are no issues that can impede that cashflow. I also use my Wamu card for the transunion score, but that is only one agency. I'm getting the other two for $10/month. I consider it part of the cost of making free money.
Bump. Article in the WSJ recently about 3 new sites that allow you to get your credit score, or close to your credit score, or a credit score *range* in addition to your credit report for free:
www.credit.com
www.creditkarma.com
www.quizzle.com
All are relatively decent, but I'm not about to cough up the cash to compare how close they are to the scores that you have to pay to get (although since they're pulling from TransUnion and Experian, they should be relatively close??)...
Only *real* shady bit I found was that quizzle was recommending that I refinance my 5.0% 30y mortgage into a 5.125% 30y, pay $3000 closing costs + 1.5pts on the deal, and somehow I'd be better off. WTF?
www.credit.com
www.creditkarma.com
www.quizzle.com
All are relatively decent, but I'm not about to cough up the cash to compare how close they are to the scores that you have to pay to get (although since they're pulling from TransUnion and Experian, they should be relatively close??)...
Only *real* shady bit I found was that quizzle was recommending that I refinance my 5.0% 30y mortgage into a 5.125% 30y, pay $3000 closing costs + 1.5pts on the deal, and somehow I'd be better off. WTF?
Some additional monkey commentary on Manimal's info about open credit cards.
The one thing that does support a higher FICO score is....
Old/long standing accounts with positive payment history.
As an example it is good to have a cc that you have had for 5+ years and never had a late payment on. If you had that CC and had a FICO score of say 700, then canceled it, your FICO score would most likely drop.
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Apparently I get a "D" for *only* having 14 credit accounts (credit cards or loans, including those closed or paid off, respectively). WTF?
wamu canceled my (formerly providian) visa for inactivity so i lost access to my free Experian credit score via their site. boo.
in other news my credit score took a 100+ point hit over the summer due to one very expensive month. we paid everything off at the end of the month, of course, but had quite the balance on one of the cards before that statement closed thanks to moving costs. apparently this balance, even though paid off, showed up as a huge revolving balance, so when we went to get approved for an auto loan the next month almost all lenders balked.
it sucked.
in other news my credit score took a 100+ point hit over the summer due to one very expensive month. we paid everything off at the end of the month, of course, but had quite the balance on one of the cards before that statement closed thanks to moving costs. apparently this balance, even though paid off, showed up as a huge revolving balance, so when we went to get approved for an auto loan the next month almost all lenders balked.
it sucked.
You are seriously over estimating your networth as it relates to Chase.
Wow...so many myths. Here you go. The Breakdown:
1. Credit scores pulled off those sites are skewed and a "generic", non-valid score. The big three Equifax, Transunion and Experion all provide lenders CURVE based scores that are biased toward the type of credit being applied for. If it's a mortgage inquiry sent to the bureau, they get back a mortgage potential score. Auto loan..same thing. Apply for a credit card...the bureau knows it and hands the lender the score based on their appeal. Using score based sites is a rip-off. Just ask the broker or lender what your score was and you'll know your best case scenario. But don't think Ford Motor Credit will give you the same one.
2. Multiple inquiries are lumped as one so long as they are the exact same type (all mortgage or auto) since you are allowed to shop for installment credit. Your score will get an initial hit of 3-8 points that stays on for 90 days until the bureau can see if any new line or lines of credit are opened. Credit cards...each inquiry is a hit because you could get several cards at once. With a house, you have a deed. Plus if they took points off for looking at 2-3 banks, you'd get a higher interest rate at each consecutive competing bank.
3. www.Optoutonline.com - Go on it. Opt out of everything for life. Creditors get a "profile score" of a person's potential for them to have you as their "kinda" guy. It is not supposed to reduce your credit score, but at my last brokerage our whole office opted out and it raised ALL of our scores immediately 12-15 points. Theory in the office...you're eliminating a risk factor by not getting high risk credit card offers bombarding you.
4. www.annualcreditreport.com is the ONLY legitamite site that you are legally allowed by federal law to garner a free copy of your report annualy from. You can, however, get individual credit reports from whichever bureau a creditor pulls from...if they decline you. You just have to call whichever of the 3 they use and they mail it to you.
5. Utilities - If you've got a bill that goes past due and they continue to provide a service, it then becomes CREDIT. They can report to a bureau at any time that late payment.
6. CitiFinancial, Beneficial, WellsFargo Financial...branchs of lenders that dish out "cash quick" or 90 days same as cash loans. Bureaus know that these companies extend credit to risky borrowers. If it's active...they'll ding you for it. I can't prove it. But I saw it clearly on people with clean payment history, great profiles and no negatives.
7. Closing out old credit cards. Think of them as fine wine. Long term, established credit accounts age and get "better" with age. It establishs good history. 3-5 cards with a 2-5 year good payment history is what you want. Where you get hit is if you have 200-300 department store cards that you use. Two people...one charges $100.00 to a $200 Gap card and another person charges $100.00 to a $3000.00 VISA and you get hit harder on the Gap card. You're using the bulk of what credit is extended to you. They can't see your income, only what portion of available credit you use. So try to never carry more than 30% of your total spending limit on any card.
1. Credit scores pulled off those sites are skewed and a "generic", non-valid score. The big three Equifax, Transunion and Experion all provide lenders CURVE based scores that are biased toward the type of credit being applied for. If it's a mortgage inquiry sent to the bureau, they get back a mortgage potential score. Auto loan..same thing. Apply for a credit card...the bureau knows it and hands the lender the score based on their appeal. Using score based sites is a rip-off. Just ask the broker or lender what your score was and you'll know your best case scenario. But don't think Ford Motor Credit will give you the same one.
2. Multiple inquiries are lumped as one so long as they are the exact same type (all mortgage or auto) since you are allowed to shop for installment credit. Your score will get an initial hit of 3-8 points that stays on for 90 days until the bureau can see if any new line or lines of credit are opened. Credit cards...each inquiry is a hit because you could get several cards at once. With a house, you have a deed. Plus if they took points off for looking at 2-3 banks, you'd get a higher interest rate at each consecutive competing bank.
3. www.Optoutonline.com - Go on it. Opt out of everything for life. Creditors get a "profile score" of a person's potential for them to have you as their "kinda" guy. It is not supposed to reduce your credit score, but at my last brokerage our whole office opted out and it raised ALL of our scores immediately 12-15 points. Theory in the office...you're eliminating a risk factor by not getting high risk credit card offers bombarding you.
4. www.annualcreditreport.com is the ONLY legitamite site that you are legally allowed by federal law to garner a free copy of your report annualy from. You can, however, get individual credit reports from whichever bureau a creditor pulls from...if they decline you. You just have to call whichever of the 3 they use and they mail it to you.
5. Utilities - If you've got a bill that goes past due and they continue to provide a service, it then becomes CREDIT. They can report to a bureau at any time that late payment.
6. CitiFinancial, Beneficial, WellsFargo Financial...branchs of lenders that dish out "cash quick" or 90 days same as cash loans. Bureaus know that these companies extend credit to risky borrowers. If it's active...they'll ding you for it. I can't prove it. But I saw it clearly on people with clean payment history, great profiles and no negatives.
7. Closing out old credit cards. Think of them as fine wine. Long term, established credit accounts age and get "better" with age. It establishs good history. 3-5 cards with a 2-5 year good payment history is what you want. Where you get hit is if you have 200-300 department store cards that you use. Two people...one charges $100.00 to a $200 Gap card and another person charges $100.00 to a $3000.00 VISA and you get hit harder on the Gap card. You're using the bulk of what credit is extended to you. They can't see your income, only what portion of available credit you use. So try to never carry more than 30% of your total spending limit on any card.
fyi, optoutonline is a dead link...
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Why would you want that? Major factors that go into your credit score are:
Length of open accts (the longer you have a card, the better)
Utilization (If you are maxed on all your cards, that looks bad)
Trust me... I work for one of the big three.
YES, this is a MYTH.
Every time you APPLY for credit your score goes down a little.
Any type of personal inquiry or a promotional inquiry will not affect your score.
Is that you Cracka Leo?
This is slightly misleading...
First of all, lets define what you mean by your "Credit Score". Really, there is no such thing as your generic "credit Score". Usually what people mean by that is your FICO score (which by the way is inferior to some of the other scores out there. Meaning that is is actually less predictive of your change of going "bad" on the acct/loan.) There are probably well over a thousand "scores" out there, and on top of that you can have any one of more than 800 attributes appended to your score.
Whatever your "score" is, is what your score is... Some of the attributes that are appended on top of the score can play a factor in your approval, but the score # is the same regardless of the product you apply for. That does not mean that you cannot use a different score based on the type of credit you are offering though.
Maybe what you mean is that your local credit union uses an auto based score for their auto loans and the Mtg Co uses a mortgage based score... And I believe that when you go to "free credit report.com", or get your score from Experian, you actually get you VantageScore, not your FICO. FICO made a huge deal about that recently stating in essence that in addition to Life Liberty adn the persuit of happiness, your "FICO" is another inalienable human right.
Wait a sec... it is 1:00 on a Friday and I'm sitting here at work talking about "work" stuff when I could just get my real work done, go home and hit up the trails!!
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