Posts Tagged ‘Credit Worthiness’

Free Instant 3 in 1 Credit Report: Helps You Know About Your Credit Worthiness

asked:




Terry
 

Instant Online Credit Report Pros and Cons

L. Sampson asked:




Knowing what is on your credit report is important and with the plethora of companies that offer instant online credit reports for free, getting a copy of yours is easier than ever. There are good reasons to take advantage free online credit reports, but with anything that contains your personal information, there are reasons to be cautious.

Benefits of getting an instant online credit report

Having instant access to your credit report can come in handy. If you are heading out to go car shopping, you might want to quickly peruse your current credit report so you know your credit worthiness before you talk to the finance people at the dealership. Often companies that offer these services provide you with a consumer friendly report that is much easier to read and understand than the official credit reports offered through the 3 credit bureaus.

Risks to consider when getting an instant online credit report

As with anything that requires you to enter your personal information, it is important that you only deal with reputable companies. Over the last few years, there as been an upswing in fraudulent companies offering free credit reports and then stealing personal information from their customers. Typically the victims are solicited through emails advertising free instant online credit reports, so be skeptical of any advertisements for free credit reports that show up in your email inbox.

When you have found a reputable company to request your free instant online credit report from, make sure you know all the terms and conditions that come with the free report. Some free reports are only available if you sign up for a monthly credit monitoring service for which you will be billed. This isn’t a problem if you are interested in having your credit monitored, but can be inconvenient at best and expensive at worst if you have to pay monthly for a service you really don’t want.

Loretta
 

Instant Online Credit Report From Experian/ReportAccess

Karen R. Miller asked:




If you are reading this article, there is a good chance that you are interested in finding out more about your credit report. Experian.com ReportAccess gives you a complete assessment of your financial standing and credit worthiness as seen by your lenders, insurers, credit cared issuers, and employers.

Only certain institutions are authorized to grade your credit score with Experian being one of them. The other two agencies are Equifax and TransUnion.

This article will discuss in detail exactly what an Experian.com ReportAccess will show you. Before we get into that, here is a little bit more of information about credit scores in general.

More about credit scores

An individual’s credit score falls in the range of 280-850, with 850 being the best and 280 being the worst. The national average for a credit score in 2009 was 693. This would mean that you have a less than average quality credit history if your score is lower than 693. If your score however is in the 700+ range, it would mean that you have better credit than the average population.

Why are credit scores useful to you?

Now that you know exactly what credit scores establish, you might wonder about their use. A credit score or a credit report is an important tool with which you can negotiate in the financial world. Let’s say that you are applying for a mortgage for a house. A lot of things will be taken into account before a bank decides to give you a mortgage. They will find out about where you work, whether you have a spouse and so on but the most important thing that they will look into is your credit report.

Your credit report would have summarized your whole financial history in a few pages. Loans that you took out before and repaid, loans that you took out and failed to pay, late payments and many other details will be shown. There is also the all important credit score number that will allow the bank to quickly evaluate you for a loan.

This is why a Experian.com ReportAccess is very important as it would allow you to leverage your good credit history to get the best possible deal on your mortgage. If however your credit report is less than spectacular and is in fact poor, you will be able to understand why a bank might turn down your loan request or give you unusually high interest rates.

The Experian.com ReportAccess credit report

The Experian.com ReportAccess credit report will give you 6 sections with which you can analyze your credit history. From personal information to credit summary to individual account details, you will be able to get a snapshot of your credit history by viewing just a couple of pages. The Experian.com ReportAccess will also give out information such as Creditor information and public records information. The report will also show you how many times your credit history has been requested by various entities. The more number of times your credit history has been requested would mean that you are generally considered high risk in terms of credit worthiness.

Jessie
 

Free Instant Credit Reports

Harry J. Andersohn asked:




Ever since consumers started to be aware of their credit score and how it affects everything from your ability to get a loan for a house, to rent an apartment, to buy a car and even to get insurance for that car, the number of sites that are claiming to offer free instant credit reports has been on the rise. But now here’s the issue – many of these sites that say they offer free credit reports really only do that as a front to get you hooked on a list that will allow them to spam you for years with all sorts of offers that you didn’t really agree to accept.

So when you’re looking for truly free credit reports, and you don’t want to wait weeks for them to arrive in the mail, you need to find a site that is legitimate, trustworthy, and can deliver on its promise to instantly show you your report and the score that lenders are using to evaluate your credit worthiness.

Here are some things to look out for…

Is the company behind the free credit report site trustworthy? Admittedly this can be a little bit difficult to evaluate on your own. Still, you should recognize a fly-by-night operation from one that has been established for a long time and that has a long list of satisfied clients.

Look for names you know, and look to see how long they’ve been in business as well as how many customers they’ve served. The best sites will be able to point to thousands of happy customers and several years in business. This can be a good indication of a site that delivers on its promise.

What are the hidden fees? Most sites that offer free credit reports will do so as part of a bundle or package that includes some kind of credit monitoring service. This is fine, and can actually be quite helpful. But what you need to make sure is that if you don’t want this monitoring service that you’ll be able to cancel it before you’re ever charged.

Again, the simple fact that the site offering a free instant credit report also puts you in to a trial for a credit monitoring service shouldn’t automatically disqualify it. As long as you’re offered a grace period during which you can cancel and not pay, this should be fine.

Is the information accurate? Now I’m not talking here about whether or not the information on your credit report is accurate. What I mean is, is the credit report coming from a reputable agency? It does you no good to go with a service that offers an “estimate” of your credit score when it’s not coming from an actual credit reporting agency.

What you need is the information that actual lenders are going to be using when evaluating whether or not they can extend credit. For this, you should be going with a brand name service – one that will offer you a true picture of how lenders see you and your ability to borrow money.

Gladys
 

Free Credit Report

Peter Nisbet asked:




In the USA you have a right to one free credit report each year, though there is no point in getting a credit report if you don’t know what to use it for.

Your free credit report will provide you with a lot of information regarding the credit agreements you have entered into, and their current and past status. It will also tell you what searches into your credit record have been carried out, by which companies and when.

Many of these will be pre-approved credit card searches that are becoming increasingly common. Ironically, even if you apply for a pre-approved card you can still be rejected if your credit score is too low at the time of application. If you have applied for other forms of credit, such as a mail order catalogue, these searches will also be listed.

Your credit score is of much more interest to lenders, since it is a numerical figure calculated on a number of variables that let’s lenders know how much of a credit risk you are. It is a snapshot figure of your credit-worthiness at the time it is requested. While a bad repayment record in your credit report will be with it for seven years, your credit score can be improved over the short term. There are things that can be done to do this, and although they are not easy to achieve, many people are able to repair their credit score in a relatively short period time.

However, that is another topic, and has been introduced to exemplify the difference between a numerical credit score and a credit report that is nothing more than a database of your credit record. The objective of this article is to provide you with information on how to go about getting your own free credit report, and also to provide you with a link on how to understand the report and improve your credit score.

Do not believe those that try to persuade you that repairing your credit score is easy, because it is not, but it can be done. Most financial advice is provided by lenders or others involved in the industry, but mine is based on the personal experience of somebody that is currently in the process of trying to repair his own credit record, and who owed many thousands to credit card companies.

I am well aware of what a credit report is, and pay a subscription to Experian so that I can access my credit record at any time. Even with the subscription, I still have to pay for my credit score. Therefore, your credit score and credit report are separate entities. However, there are things that you do to have certain records removed from your credit report, and that will in turn improve your credit score.

“Charge Offs” are debts that have been written off by banks and financial institutions as not recoverable, and are the worst type of record to have on your report. If these appear on your free credit record then it might be possible to agree a partial repayment with the bank in return for the record being removed. Sometimes financial institutions will accept this deal if it is the only way they are going to get some of their money back. However, this does not always work since they will generally not be willing to discuss the matter with you.

These records will also disappear after 7 years, so unless you have a pressing need for credit within 7 years of the default appearing on your record, you could wait and then check your credit report to make sure it has gone. If not, then request that it is.

Other uses for your credit report including ensuring that the debt is yours: it is not unknown for the debt of another person to appear on your credit record. Somebody might have used your address to get credit, and it is the address that matters here, not the name. An adjunct to that is that if somebody living in your home, such as a paying guest, has bad credit, then it will appear on your credit report. In such cases you have to inform the credit report agency that the person is not financially dependent on you, and demand that the record be removed. That is your legal right.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) you can challenge any entry in your free credit report if you feel it is inaccurate. The credit bureaus that hold your records must then request confirmation of the information from the original creditor, and if that has not been provided within 30 days then the record must be removed. It is often not enough for the creditor simply to confirm the record, but to provide evidence that it is accurate. I have had more than one record removed this way.

Your free credit report, then, is important to you, but you have to know what to do with it. However, be realistic and understand that perhaps only time can help your credit report. However, your credit score might be easier to improve, especially if you can get a loan such as a bad credit mortgage that, although you will be paying a higher interest rate, will do wonders for your credit score if you maintain your payments.

The three major credit agencies are Experian, Equifax and Trans Union and you have the right to request any of them for a free credit report within 60 days of being refused credit, and also a further free report every year. The company refusing you credit must inform you which agency they used.

Marvin
 

The Advantages To Obtaining A Free Credit Report And Score – Verify Your Credit Score For Free

Tim Gorman asked:




A credit report provides information in regards to your credit worthiness by giving the nitty gritty details of your credit transactions. These reports are sold by the credit bureaus to lenders like banks, insurance companies, credit card companies and many other financially related institutions who use your report to evaluate you and decide whether to transact with you. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you are entitled to your very own free credit report from each of the three top credit bureaus Equifax, Experian ad TransUnion, every 12 months, on request. This is to ensure that you know what picture is projected about you to the various potential lenders and businesses in the market and to protect yourself from any form of identity theft that seems to be prevelant in today’s society.

In order to cater to the free annual credit report program, the three credit reporting companies have set up a website, a toll free telephone and a mailing address as avenues through which anyone can order their free credit information. The website is http://www.annualcreditreport.com , the toll free number is 1-877-322-8228 and mailing address is Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281, to which you need to send in the Annual credit report request form. Additionally, you have the option to order free report and score (the score is optional and comes at a small cost) from all three companies at the same time or each at a different time, depending on your purposes.

Consumers that choose to search the Internet and go online in order to obtain a copy of their free credit report and score need to be wary on one point – There are companies that have their web site names very close in spelling to the one mentioned above. So, if a consumer makes a typo error while typing the website address, they will be redirected to different unintended pages, which may collect some information and offer some services, at a cost.

When you order your information online, you will get it instantly. Whereas if you order using the toll free number or through the mail, it is likely to take a minimum of 15 days or more, depending on the volumes being processed by the credit bureaus. You are also eligible for a free credit report, when a company has refused to transact with you; if you do not have a job currently and plan to take up one in the next sixty days; if you are on welfare or if your report has any errors that you have reported with evidence.

If you wonder what you will do with a credit report, think again. Before applying for a loan or insurance or credit card or a job, it is a good idea to verify your financial information and ensure that all the details provided there are accurate and current. Else, the report might throw an unpleasant surprise at you. Verifying your credit report periodically is a way to avoid identity theft, where a person lifts your identity details and uses it for credit purposes like getting a loan or a credit card and defaults on it. By checking your credit report, you can catch such thefts and report them on time, before it gives you ‘bad credit’.

Now that you know the advantages of tracking your credit report and score, you could choose the best way to get it free and enjoy the benefits.

Lonnie