Credit Correction Education
Last Thursday I attended a seminar sponsored by Raffi Soghomonian, Lender at Bank of America featuring a national credit expert, Linda Ferrari, Realtor and CEO of Credit Resource Corporation. Her website is: lindaferrari.com/credit-services/.
Here's a few tips I picked up that may help you or your loved ones:
Here's a few tips I picked up that may help you or your loved ones:
- There are three credit bureaus (companies that collect your credit and provide it to banks, landlords, etc.) They are:
- Equifax 404-885-8300
- Experian 714-830-7000
- TransUnion 312-985-2000
- Each credit bureau carefully guards it's own information and does not share data with the other companies. Not all creditors report to all three bureaus.
- When banks, credit unions, credit card companies, car dealerships, etc. pull your credit, they pull different information, so your score will show differently depending on which service they used and how in-depth they checked.
- Mortgage companies do the most in depth credit check and use all three companies. They do NOT average the scores, rather they take the middle score when making their underwriting decisions.
- If there is something on your report that shouldn't be, first contact the company you supposedly owe money to and then contact each of the credit bureaus to dispute the item. Removing an incorrect item can boost your score 20-30 points within a few days. If there is a collection you DO owe, negotiate deletion of the collection in exchange for payment, this could boost your score up to 75 points.
- The score considered Good is: 750+
- According to a recent FTC study (United States), 43.4 Million people have scores under 599, and 70% of the population has scores below 700.
- Consumers receive score information under the Vantage system which has a range of 501 to 990
- Creditors (Banks, etc.) receive score information under the FICO system which has a range from 300 to 850
- If you want to know your FICO score before going to the bank, www.privacyguard.com provides consumers scores very close to the FICO
- If you want your credit score for free, go to FreeScore.com
