According to Experian, one of the leading credit rating and credit score reporting agencies, the average credit score in the United States is 693. While a credit rating of 693 is by no means a bad credit score, it’s just short of a threshold which will make lenders look at you with a kinder eye. Click Here To Learn What Your Current Credit Rating Is!

The best rates are reserved for individuals with a credit score of over 700. Such scores are generally viewed by banks and lending institutions as a sign of a solid financial health, with a minimal risk on the loan repayment.

But even with a good credit rating of 700+, there’s no guarantee you’ll get your loan. Fair Isaac and the Consumer Federation of America (FICO) explains that credit scores are becoming more and more competitive to attain, and scrutiny is tighter. Blame it on the economy, but a credit rating of 760 is fast becoming the new 720.

So it’s very important to know where you stand with your credit score. This is fundamental if you are going to apply for a mortgage, where a higher rating will ensure your loan rates are much more favorable.

A good credit rating is extremely important also in securing a loan, be it a personal loan, signature loan, or payday loan. If your credit score is over 720, you are far more likely to be disbursed a loan in the first place.

Most people unfortunately find out their credit score only when they apply for a loan. There can be no worse surprise than finding out your credit rating doesn’t meet the requirements, at a time when that important loan you were counting on is denied.

So where do YOU stand with your credit rating? Are you in for a nasty surprise?

Learn What Your Current Credit Rating Is!

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After twelve years of credit repair, credit score repair and writing credit repair letters to all sorts of creditors, collection agencies and credit bureaus, I realized that it was necessary to provide my services at a serious discount to consumers in need. I realized that not all consumers could afford my credit repair services. As a result, I created a hotline to answer credit repair and credit score questions. However, I noticed that it was becoming an overwhelming task for my staff and at much expense in order to provide the free credit repair services.

A little over two (2) years ago, a couple of my clients suggested I should write a booklet (20 pages) about credit score, how credit score is calculated, what to look for when calculating credit score, what is the best way to repair credit and some of the main topics of credit repair. They suggested I should provide this ebook for a price of $9.95. I thought about doing so for some time as I was thinking that 20 pages of credit repair ebook would not be enough to even touch the surface on so many subjects that needed to be covered. You see the entire idea of credit repair (credit score repair) or credit repair letter writing is not a simple task that even 50 pages would be enough. However, it was also bothering me to charge $9.95 for some limited number of pages.

Then I realized, I could sit and think and continue contemplating about writing a credit repair – fix credit summary pages until I turn blue, or if I truly want to help consumers with their credit repair and credit score issues, I must take a step and start now. That was two (2) years ago.

As I was writing, in August 2006, I realized, we’ll have a major problems with the mortgage loans being granted so easily due to the unethical practices of mortgage lenders, brokers and direct lenders. You must understand this point. For the past eleven (11) years, I was directly involved in assisting my clients get loans after their credit repair was reasonably completed and their credit score was around 740 or higher. Initially, I was just fixing credit and let them enjoy the luxury of such good credit score. However, after communicating with my clients a couple of months later, I noticed that they were getting rubbed by ‘mortgage brokers’ and the so called ‘Direct Lenders’ or even the loan servicing companies. It was unjust then and it continued to be unjust now. Since this is a separate issue of its own, that I must share it with you and teaches you what to watch-out for, I am going to create a separate article about Creditors, lenders, mortgage brokers and the ‘direct lenders.’

Let’s stick with issue regarding credit repair.

Most consumers fall in the trap of over extended credit when banks and credit cards companies offer one card or loan after another. The consumers think the best way to get-out-of debt is borrowing more. In other words, ’steal from Pete to pay Paul.’ This is one of the major misconception consumers have that puts them in a deeper debt and causes even more problems for them to the point that they have credit collapse (beyond credit crunch). They experience receiving a lot of called from collection agencies, having late payments, collections and charge off entries on their credit files (credit reports) and their credit score goes down to 400 or 500 level.

As I was typing my so-called ebook (according to push my clients given), I noticed that the summary book was expanding to over one hundred pages and I was not even touching half the issues. Then I decided to continue and make the book a ‘credit repair’ book called ‘Your Credit = Your Life, Fix It Now!’ Since August 2006 realization that we will have mortgage problems, my only option was to inform as many people as I could either by emailing or calling, I was not able to reach all consumers. However, ‘Your Credit = Your Life…’ book addressed all issues.

Other misconceptions consumers have, is the fact that some of them think, a credit repair is a quick fix. They think, they can just wave a magic wand and their credit score will go up from 495 to 720 or more. That’s not how it works. A true credit repair or improvement in credit score takes time (several months to a couple of years). Don’t be fooled by what you hear as quick ‘credit repair fix.’

In order for you to do self credit repair which is the best method, your must follow several steps. Those steps are lengthy and require patience. It requires dedication, willpower and application of your own gradual experiences. For the past several years, I have a sign on my office door so that everyone can clearly see. I also have the quote on my business cards, letterhead, books I wrote and talk about it repeatedly. It says, ‘more is lost by indecision than by bad decision.’

Think about it for a couple of second and then relate these words to what has transpired in your life thus far. Just as I was contemplating to write 20 pages for an ebook and sell it for $9.95, I was thinking of two things:

a. It is not possible to write just 20 pages,
b. I wouldn’t have the heart to sell a summary book for $9.95.

I lost the track of my own quote. ‘More was being lost be my indecision…’ I wanted to help teach others how to fix credit; I hired a staff teaching them the credit repair concepts, but wasn’t grabbing my keyboard to type what was in my heart and mind. As my clients were pushing me, I was lost in my indecision.

Most consumers do exactly the same as I did for a couple of months. Think with yourself. How many times were you planning to do something and you kept contemplating if you should do what was in your mind or suggested to you? I bet you did that a few times. I bet part of your problem was the same as mine. Where do I start? How do I approach it? What would be my next step? And, a long list of other questions. You know something. Unless you take the first step, you wouldn’t know what the next step is. Unless you set your goal, mind and heart to take an action, it will never happen. You will contemplate and continue in your indecision yet time passes you by and all you do get deeper and deeper in debt, pay more for simple loans, get drowned in debt to a point that you will take your credit or financial anger on your loved ones. ALL BECAUSE YOU DID NOT MAKE YOUR DECISION IN DOING SOMETHING TO TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND.

My dear friend, stop feeling sorry. Here, I am pushing you to do something. Make a decision and do something about it NOW. It is never a bad idea to have a better credit so that you could have a better life and save more money. It took me several months to prepare the book that offers all you need to know about your credit. Believe me, I have seen so many credit reports that yours would not be half as bad as what I’ve seen. There is hope for everyone, especially you. You only become hopeless when you don’t get up, shack off feeling sorry and do something to turn your credit life around.

Please let it be now. Here are a few steps in what you can do.

1. Get copies of your credit reports. You must obtain recent copies for all three (3) credit bureaus. One credit report won’t do. Why? Different creditors and collection agencies report to different credit bureaus. See the book.
2. Compare each entry shown on your credit reports with the account statements you have. Whether it is an open account, closed account, a collection, a charge off or late payment account. You don’t know how many times, I seen credit reports where the consumer did not have any such account and it was creditor or credit bureaus mistakes. Read the book.
3. When you notice inconsistencies (whether it is an account you don’t recognize or misinformation about an account), call creditors and credit bureaus. Discuss, dispute and be persistent.
4. Ask for a conclusion, removal or correction letter.
5. Do NOT settle with collection agencies. If you do or have no other choice, you must do two things, settle for less or don’t pay unless they correct the entry by removing it.
6. Do not trust a collection agent. They do NOT mean well.

There are so many things to talk about and so many techniques to offer. It is impossible to discuss all in this article. So, I ask you to do something useful and quick to improve your credit score, which is as a result of your steps in your credit repair. You don’t know how good it will do for you.

For a complete details of the list above and other topics use the knowledge base provided at www.MasterCreditRepair.net and pick up a copy of the book ‘Your Credit = Your Life, Fix It now!’ I promise, visiting the website will worth every moment and/or penny and spent.

Best wishes
Mike Samadi

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More and more people are becoming aware of their credit report, and how it affects them in their daily lives. As they apply for a home loan, credit card, or line of credit, they realize that credit scores can make a huge difference in the amount of interest they will pay. Some have even realized to their chagrin that past indiscretions and problems can come back to haunt them. Being turned down for a loan can be very painful and embarrassing.

If you are ready for an intelligent look into your credit situation, then you may want to take a long look at your own credit report. When you have acquired a transcript of your credit report, it is plainly in your interest to understand how to interpret it. There are loads of numbers and distinct accounts on one piece of paper, and you should strive to understand what you are looking at, and what it all means.

Three major credit-reporting agencies

There are three pre-eminent credit-reporting agencies that are going to play a big role in your credit life. The “Big Three” are Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. You should copy a transcript of your credit report from these three companies, at the very least, every 12 months. You can find out additional information about these companies online and they will guide you how to acquire a no cost credit report.

The large credit scoring companies have fee-based websites, where you can look at your credit score whenever you’d like, see how your credit score has changed over time, and see any inquiries that have happened. You can even sign up for alerts that will let you know if anything has changed with your credit score. This can be a big advantage if you are trying to increase your credit score to get better interest rates.

What is in these reports?

All credit reports have similar information in them. They will have your identifying information, such as residence address, social security number drivers licence number and other items. Each credit company will have payment history, late payment information and balance owed. There will be information from the public record if any exists. There will also be any inquiries from credit companies in the last months.

The three major credit agencies’ reports will have distinct information in them. This is because each company has different credit companies that subscribe to them, and that is how they get their information. The credit card companies, mortgage companies, and banks all send credit information on each creditor on a monthly basis. The agencies then tabulate all the credit information they receive about you, and come up with a new credit score.

In addition to the Big Three, a company called Fair Issacs also keeps credit score information for it’s customers. Fair Issacs is considered the “Father of Credit Scoring,” since they were the first to devise the credit score as a way to make lenders’ jobs easier.

The major parts of a credit report

A credit report is separated into four sections, identifying information, credit history, public records, and inquiries.

Identifying information

Your identifying information is the section that identifies who you are. There are maybe hundreds of people in the United States having an identical name (can you imagine how many John Smith’s there are?), but all people has a discrete social security number. The report should also confirm your driver’s license number, last known address, and unique phone number.

Credit history

The second section of your credit report is your credit history. Each individual’s account will have the name of the creditor and the creditor’s account number. You will want to make certain that these are authentic accounts that you maintain now or had at one period. If they are incorrect, you will be shown a way to contest them.

Public records

This is the section that obtains any report about your past criminal record. This will also contain any arrests or bad judgments that have been made against you. This is a section that is better off empty for obvious reasons.

The inquiries

The last part to a credit report is the inquiries. This is anyone who has seen a transcript of your credit report. Anytime that you apply for a loan, credit card or line of credit, some one can see your report and they will pull an inquiry report. This is a very complete report. It is not a good practice to show a lot of inquiries on your credit report.

Changing your credit report

If there is any part of your report that is in question, you will have a way to dispute or correct it. The dispute will be reviewed and the questionable information may be taken off your credit report. If it cannot be taken off of the report, you should have a way to add your own explanation of the situation to the report. This could help a potential lender undertstand the situation more fully.

I hope that this article has given you a basic understanding of what is in your credit report, and what you should look for when reading your credit report. To find the credit agencies, do an online search for their websites.

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Do you have a poor credit rating? If so, you are one of tens of thousands of Americans with the same problem. In fact, it seems that this has become a national ‘disease. ’ And just what do people need that have a disease? They need a cure.  Here are some sure – inflame solutions to ‘ fix bad credit ‘. Keep in mood, like most ‘diseases, ’ credit remedy can take some time, but complete salutary is possible.

The Best Parade
The boon thing you need to do is find out what is being reported about you. This is viable and inexpensive. For subservient $10, you can get your credit report from one of the three main credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. Keep in disposition however, that if you have recently been denied credit, you can get a free report from the same credit bureau the lender used to discourage you as long as you do so within 30 days.

What You Don’t Need

You don’t need a redress clinic. Why? There is no legal way to ‘repair’ your credit. Those that claim to understand loopholes and shortcuts are merely out for your money. They may even get you into legal disaster by having you fudge the announcement or creating a perfect new sequence for you. Anything legal that a clinic can do, you can do just as tender and without the charge of ‘professional’ backing.

Further Steps to Take:

1. Stop using your credit cards immediately. Put them somewhere where they will not tempt you. You may consider keeping at least one card for emergency purposes. Additionally, with poor credit, you may find it more onerous to get a credit card in the future. If you keep at least one balance yawning, then you won’t have to worry about applying.

2. Be Honest With Yourself. Captivating a good tough look at your financial situation, particularly if it isn’t good, can be very laborious. Yet, to get out debt you have to fairly understand what the situation is.

3. Find the Errors. Credit it or not, up to 40 % of all credit reports have errors in them. If you find that your credit report shows something that is not genuine, you need to write to them with all the details. Be sure to use authorized mail so that you can keep pathway of who you wrote to, when you wrote, and who received the mail on the credit bureau’s modern. Then ask the credit bureau to send a corrected report to anyone who has requested a report on you in the last 6 months.

4. Find the Omissions. By law, you are allowed to add information to your report that you surmise will aegis your rating. This might be supplementary information about a deduction of a loan, good credit you have with companies that do not invoice to the credit bureau, or remuneration increases.

5. You Must Have a Layout. Whether you determine to pay your bills down seldom at a time, take a closing afafir, go to credit counseling, or line bankruptcy, you need to make a layout and stick to it. In behest for your credit to be improved, you have to have a arrangement and then take accomplishment!

6. Speak to those that you owe. Creditors want their money. They do not want you to default ( leave paying ). In fact, most creditors will work with you to get a reduced payment plan. If you can keep them from reporting you to the credit bureau, then it won’t abuse your credit. The take here is this: be sure to stick to the new negotiated plan – they won’t renegotiate if you wither to comply.

7. The Best Cure is Time. Have you ever heard the saying ‘time heals all wounds’? It also heals your credit. After 7 years, most items will be dropped. This is good news if you are working to correct your credit. As each year passes, more and more bad items will drop off and more and more good items will be included. Eventually, the disease will be cured.

Follow these steps and you will find that your credit looks healthier and healthier each day. Eventually this path will prompt you to whole recovery. Good Luck!

Technorati Tags: Bad Credit, Credit, credit card, debt, Repair Credit Score

Credit Rating – In case you would like to know what a credit rating is, we have done the research for you and can tell you what exactly a credit rating is. As a matter of fact, there is nothing really special to it, yet important. A credit rating does nothing more than evaluating the credit worthiness of a person, company, or yes, even a country. These credit ratings are premeditated from financial history and current assets and liabilities. Characteristically, a credit rating tells a lender or investor the likelihood of the subject being able to pay back a loan.

However, in recent years, credit ratings have also been used to adjust insurance premiums, determine employment eligibility, and establish the amount of a utility or leasing deposit. A poor credit rating indicates a high risk of defaulting on a loan, and thus leads to high interest rates or the refusal of a loan by the creditor.

Personal credit ratings
In the United States, an individual’s credit history is compiled and maintained by companies called credit bureaus. Credit worthiness is usually determined through a statistical analysis of the available credit data. A common form of this analysis is a 3-digit credit score provided by independent financial service companies such as the FICO credit score. (The term, a registered trademark, comes from Fair Isaac Corporation, which pioneered the credit rating concept in the late 1950s.)

An individual’s credit score, along with his or her credit report, affects his or her ability to borrow money through financial institutions such as banks.

In Canada, the most common ratings are the North American Standard Account Ratings, also known as the “R” ratings, which have a range between R0 and R9. R0 refers to a new account; R1 refers to on-time payments; R9 refers to bad debt.

The factors which may influence a person’s credit rating are:
* Ability to pay a loan
* Interest
* Amount of credit used
* saving patterns
* spending patterns
* Debt

How important is your credit score?
When lenders let you have a loan of money, this actually translates to an investment on their part. They collect from the interest as well as the principal. On the other hand, like all investments, lending money involves particular kinds of risk. For instance, a borrower may miss out on his monthly obligations, or he may file for bankruptcy. If either of this happens, the lender will have lost in his investment.

So to minimize the risk of loss, lenders want to know as early as possible whether you are a good investment or not – with other words, whether you are a good borrower who pays his monthly obligations regularly. One way for a lender to determine the likelihood of a borrower to repay his obligation is to get a hold of his credit score.

The credit score reflects how good of an investment you actually are. Each score is based on information that the credit bureaus keep on file about you. Based on such score, the lenders will be able to calculate how much and what loan terms (interest rates, down payments, etc.) they will offer you at any given time.

Thus, low credit scores generally mean higher interest rates and more stringent requirements for approval of your loan application. On the other hand, high credit scores generally mean lower interest rates and lower monthly repayments. So, since we have concluded that a low credit score is immensely to your benefit, how, if you have a bad credit score, can you improve your credit score? There are several possible ways:

How to Improve Credit Score
The first thing that lenders will check when you apply for credit – whether a loan, mortgage, or a credit card purchase – is your credit score. That’s because before they decide to lend you money, they want to know how good a risk you would be.

Lenders are business people and as business people they always consider the risks involved when they make an investment. The investment is the credit provided to you, of course. Whether it is a personal loan, Mortgage or any other form of credit: If the risk far outweighs their investment, then naturally lenders would approach your request with more caution seeking more security or worse, turn away altogether from such a deal.

The credit score helps lenders make their decisions easier and faster. Because your credit score is the closest thing to accurate information determinative of your future credit performance, they base their decisions concerning your credit application on this three-digit number.

For this reason, many consumers have decided to take steps to learn how to improve credit score. Even if you already have good credit standing with your lenders, it still pays to learn more ways on how to improve credit score even further. A good credit score can help ensure that you get the most favorable interest rates. How much more if you’ve got close to perfect credit score?

The best way to improve your credit score drastically is to get help from professionals. Below are some of those professionals to help you to improve your credit score. We advise you to browse their sites and their services. Experience with them taught us that they are among the best credit repair agencies. A good credit score is now merely a few clicks away.

Technorati Tags: Bad Credit, Credit, credit card, Credit rating, Credit Score, debt, FICO, FICO Score, personal credit rating

The Truth about Free Credit Reports

“Get your free credit reports!” “Free credit reports from all three credit reporting agencies!” “Three credit reports in one!” Sound familiar? It is true that you can get a copy of your free credit reports. But where? When faced with this question, most people would immediately google the keyword “free credit report.” However, that would only result in 150 million different links to sites all purportedly offering “free” credit reports. Now, the question is: Are they really free?

How do you know they’re not really phisher sites that are out to scam you by making it appear that they are legitimate websites offering free credit reports? Only to find later on that they’ve been using the “free credit report” bait to lure you in so they can steal information from you. After getting the information from you, they will then sell it to third party scammers and con artists who will use them for who-knows-what sort of crimes, including identity theft. The fact of the matter is that there is only one legitimate website that offers free credit reports to consumers. And that is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

The Real Deal

Most Americans don’t know this but the US Congress has passed an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA for short. The law itself was passed in 2004 but the clause on free credit reports being made available to the public was only added recently. Basically, the amendment contains a provision that allows every citizen of the United States to obtain one free copy of their credit report from each of the three main credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

To date, the website offers free credit reports to consumers in the western, Midwestern, and Southern states of the US only. As to why this is so, the reason given was so that the crush of traffic may be rolled out and to avoid taxing the free credit report site server too much. If you do not live in the Midwestern states, you can also check the time table provided as to when free credit reports are going to be available for your state. Those in the Northeast, for instance, had their copies available in September 2005.

What You Need to Know Before Ordering a Free Credit Report

In order to get your copy of your free credit report, the AnnualCreditReport.com will need the following sensitive information from you:

All these will be used only to verify your identity and to protect you from any identity thieves posing as you so they could obtain copies of your credit reports.

The process is fairly simple and takes only minutes to finish. Remember to order your free credit report only from the AnnualCreditReport.com to ensure that the copy is really free. Do not attempt to order directly from the credit reporting agencies as they may charge you for your credit report. Note that you can only get a copy of your free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com once every 12 months. For other sources of credit reports, you can check any of the three major credit reporting agencies. These agencies are actually private companies so they may charge a small fee when you request them for a copy of your report. The only exceptions are if you:

FTC’s Consumer Alert on Fake Credit Report Sites

In response to a recent wave of free credit report scams to hit the Internet, the FTC has released an alert. Consumers are advised to be wary of credit report sites that turn out to be fake sites using high-tech scam called “phishing.” A phisher site is one that imitates a legitimate web page, copying all its contents including its logo and identifying marks, in order to fool people into believing that they are accessing the real site only to be sorry afterwards. The phisher site will usually be a log in page or will contain a form which a user is encouraged to fill up.

After getting the user’s details, the site will re-route the information to a third party server that stores all these illegally procured data to be sold later on to identity thieves, scammers, and con artists. Sometimes, phisher sites are introduced to a consumer through spam mails that contain links to these phisher sites.

Other times, these phisher sites are accessed through a clever mix of techno-babble, employing malware such as spyware and browser-hijackers, so that when a user types in the URL of the real website, the malware will pick up on this and re-route you to the phisher site. There are so many ways that you can get victimized by phisher sites purporting to offer you free credit reports only to turn out to be no more than fertile grounds for scammers to defraud you. To fight against these insidious individuals, follow these tips provided by the FTC:

If you have fallen victim or stumbled upon any of the illegal activities above-mentioned or any other suspicious activity, do report it to the FTC and the US Secret Service. If you have a copy of the actual spam, you can send it to the Los Angeles Electronic Crimes Task Force at (remove the spaces) LA.ECTF.reports @ usss.dhs.gov and to the FTC at uce @ ftc.gov.

More Tips on Free Credit Report Scams

There have been reports of consumers receiving emails purporting to be coming from AnnualCreditReport.com. The website does not actively seek out consumers and invite them to order their free credit reports online. In fact, the FTC strongly cautions against ordering credit reports online as this may increase the risk of having someone steal your details.However, if you find that the convenience of getting your free credit report online far outweighs the risks involved, then follow these tips to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft or any other fraudulent acts:

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