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CREDIT TIPS :: PART 1

What You Think You Know — But Don't!

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - It turns out that learning more about your credit rating could help you boost your score and even save you some money.

"Unfortunately, most consumers still do not know basic facts about credit scores and their financial significance," according to the Consumer Federation of America Executive Director Stephen Brobeck.

In fact, according to a recent poll conducted by Opinion Research Corp., only 27 percent of consumers understand that scores measure credit risk.

The truth is, your credit score, sometimes called a FICO score, is a number based on the information in your credit file that shows how likely you are to pay a loan back on time -- the higher your score, the less risky you are.

There are three major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. The credit bureaus write up your report based on any information they received about you from companies that gave you credit in the past, such as your payment history, the length of your credit history, the types of credit you have and amounts owed.

From that report, a credit score is derived -- which ranges from 300 to a perfect 850.

That score is a quick way for lenders to assess how risky you are as a potential borrower. The higher your score, the less risk you pose to lenders and the more likely it is that you'll get their best available rates.

Consumers with scores above 700 are usually charged relatively low rates, and those with scores above 760 are charged the lowest rates.

Consumers with scores below 600 are typically charged relatively high loan rates, and if your credit score is really bad, you may be not be able to borrow at all.

Any late payments you made will lower your score, but establishing or re-establishing a good track record of making payments on time will raise your score.

Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, says, ideally, you want your score to be well above 620, that's a drawing line for creditors. (The median credit score in the United States is 723.)

"Those who have obtained their scores know significantly more about credit scores than those who have not," noted CFA's Brobeck.

Tip #1: Understand where credit scores come from.

If you are going to improve your credit score, then logic has it that you must understand what your credit score is and how it works. Without this information, you won't be able to very effectively improve your score because you won't understand how the things you do in daily life affect your score.

If you don't understand how your credit score works, you will also be at the mercy of any company that tries to tell you how you can improve your score - on their terms and at their price.

In general, your credit score is a number that lets lenders know how much of a credit risk you are. The credit score is a number, usually between 300 and 850, that lets lenders know how well you are paying off your debts and how much of a credit risk you are.

In general, the higher your credit score, the better credit risk you make and the more likely you are to be given credit at great rates. Scores in the low 600s and below will often give you trouble in finding credit, while scores of 720 and above will generally give you the best interest rates out there. However, credit scores are a lot like GPAs or SAT scores from college days - while they give others a quick snapshot of how you are doing, they are interpreted by people in different ways. Some lenders put more emphasis on credit scores than others.

Some lenders will work with you if you have credit scores in the 600s, while others offer their best rates only to those creditors with very high scores indeed. Some lenders will look at your entire credit report while others will accept or reject your loan application based solely on your credit score.

The credit score is based on your credit report, which contains a history of your past debts and repayments. Credit bureaus use computers and mathematical calculations to arrive at a credit score from the information contained in your credit report.

Each credit bureau uses different methods to do this (which is why you will have different scores with different companies) but most credit bureaus use the FICO system. FICO is an acronym for the credit score calculating software offered by Fair Isaac Corporation company. This is by far the most used software since the Fair Isaac Corporation developed the credit score model used by many in the financial industry and is still considered one of the leaders in the field.

In fact, credit scores are sometimes called FICO scores or FICO ratings, although it is important to understand that your score may be tabulated using different software.

One other thing you may want to understand about the software and mathematics that goes into your credit score is the fact that the math used by the software is based on research and comparative mathematics. This is an important and simple concept that can help you understand how to boost your credit score. In simple terms, what this means is that your credit score is in a way calculated on the same principles as your insurance premiums.

Your insurance company likely asks you questions about your health, your lifestyle choices (such as whether you are a smoker) because these bits of information can tell the insurance company how much of a risk you are and how likely you are to make large claims later on. This is based on research.

Studies have shown, for example, that smokers tend to be more prone to serious illnesses and so require more medical attention. If you are a smoker, you may face higher insurance premiums because of this.

Similarly, credit bureaus and lenders often look at general patterns. Since people with too many debts tend not to have great rates of repayment, your credit score may suffer if you have too many debts, for example. Understanding this can help you in two ways:

1. It will let you see that your credit score is not a personal reflection of how "good" or "bad" you are with money. Rather, it is a reflection of how well lenders and companies think you will repay your bills - based on information gathered from studying other people.
     
2. It will let you see that if you want to improve your credit score, you need to work on becoming the sort of debtor that studies have shown tends to repay their bills. You do not have to work hard to reinvent yourself financially and you do not have to start making much more money. You just need to be a reliable debtor. This realization alone should help make credit repair far less stressful!

Credit reports are put together by credit bureaus, which use information from client companies. It works like this: credit bureaus have clients — such as credit card companies and utility companies, to name just two — who provide them with information.

Once a file is begun on you (i.e. once you open a bank account or have bills to pay) then information about you is stored on the record. If you are late paying a bill, the clients call the credit bureaus and note this. Any unpaid bills, overdue bills or other problems with credit count as "dings" on your credit report and affect your score.

Information such as what type of debt you have, how much debt you have, how regularly you pay your bills on time, and your credit accounts are all information that is used to calculate your credit score.

Your age, sex, and income do not count towards your credit score. The actual formula used by credit bureaus to calculate credit scores is a well-kept secret, but it is known that recent account activity, debts, length of credit, unpaid accounts, and types of credit are among the things that count the most in tabulating credit scores from a credit report.

Tip #2: Keep the contact information for credit bureaus handy.

The three major credit bureaus are important to contact if you are going to be repairing your credit score. The major three credit agencies can help you by sending you your credit report. If you find an error on your credit report, these are also the companies you must contact in order to correct the problem. You can easily contact these organizations by mail, telephone, or through the Internet:

Equifax Credit Information Services, Inc
Address: P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374
Telephone: 1-888-766-0008
Online: www.equifax.com

TransUnion LLC Consumer Disclosure Center
Address: P.O. Box 1000
Chester, PA 19022
Telephone: 1-800-888-4213
Online: www.transunion.com

Experian National Consumer Assistance Center
Address: PO Box 2002
Allen, TX 75013
Telephone: 1-888-397-3742
Online: www.experian.com

You may want to note this information wherever most of your financial information is kept so that you can easily contact the bureaus whenever you need to. Your local yellow pages should also have the contact information of these credit agencies as well.

Tip #3: Develop an action plan for dealing with your credit score.

Once you have your credit report and your credit score, you will be able to tell where you stand and where many of your problems lie. If you have a poor score, try to see in your credit report what could be causing the problem:

The problems that contribute to your credit problems should dictate how you decide to boost your credit score. As you read through this guide, highlight or jot down those tips that apply to you and from them develop a checklist of things you can do that would help your credit situation improve.

When you seek professional credit counseling or credit help, counselors will generally work with you to help you develop a personalized strategy that expressly addresses your credit problems and financial history. Now, with this guide, you can develop a similar strategy on your own - in your own time and at your own cost.

When developing your action plan, know where most of your credit score is coming from:

1. Your credit history (accounts for more than a third of your credit score in some cases). Whether or not you have been a good credit risk in the past is considered the best indicator of how you will react to debt in the future. For this reason, late payment, loan defaults, unpaid taxes, bankruptcies, and other unmet debt responsibilities will count against you the most. You can't do much about your financial past now, but starting to pay your bills on time - starting today - can help boost your credit score in the future.
     
2. Your current debts (accounts for approximately a third of your credit score in some cases). If you have lots of current debt, it may indicate that you are stretching yourself financially thin and so will have trouble paying back debts in the future. If you have a lot of money owing right now - and especially if you have borrowed a great deal recently - this fact will bring down your credit score. You an boost your credit score by paying down your debts as far as you can.
     
3. How long you have had credit (accounts for up to 15% of your credit score in some cases). If you have not had credit accounts for very long, you may not have enough of a history to let lenders know whether you make a good credit risk. Not having had credit for a long time can affect your credit score. You can counter this by keeping your accounts open rather than closing them off as you pay them off.
     
4. The types of credit you have (accounts for about one tenth of your credit score, in most cases). Lenders like to see a mix of financial responsibilities that you handle well. Having bills that you pay as well as one or two types of loans can actually improve your credit score. Having at least one credit card that you manage well can also help your credit score.

As you can see, it is possible to only estimate how much a specific area of your credit report affects your credit score. Nevertheless, keeping these five areas in mind and making sure that each is addressed in your personalized plan will go a long way in making sure that your personalized credit repair plan is comprehensive enough to boost your credit effectively.

Next Section: The Best Ways to Boost Your Credit Score (Tips 4-7)

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