Comments on: A Reader On The Cusp Of A Great Credit Rating

By: S

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:49:44 +0000

Hard lesson learned over and over again NEVER lend money to family!!!!

By: Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 14 May 2007 23:16:43 +0000

It is not the “GOVERNMENT’S free program.”

It does help consumers get the free annual reports from three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) that the law requires though.

By: Ted Valentine

Ted Valentine — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:39:41 +0000

6. You link attached to “the government’s free program” is broken. You have a semicolon where a colon should be.

By: Ted Valentine

Ted Valentine — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:38:31 +0000

1. Never cosign for another person unless you are 100% willing to lose that money and that person as a friend. Seriously. Cosigning is just dumb.

2. You can’t get the score for free at the website – just your report. You have to pay for the score.

3. You can get your score for “free” if you’ve applied for a mortgage. I say “free” because the lender will charge for services.

4. I got a mortgage with a very low credit score. I followed Dave Ramsey’s plan and had NO DEBT and no credit cards. They flagged us at first because lenders assume everyone has debt.

5. When you go to annualcreditreport.com they will ask you test questions about your information because they want to make sure it is you. I was surprised at first, but it is a security measure to prevent someone from easily stealing your identity.

By: !wanda

!wanda — Mon, 14 May 2007 15:08:24 +0000

I agree that the current system makes it hard for some people to get their credit score. The first time I tried to get my credit report, the online form said I could type in either my last two residences or two credit card numbers. Well, I was a graduate student and had lived at my current address for 3 months, my former address for 2.5 months, and the one before that for less than a year; I was unsure which of those “counted” and had forgotten some of the details anyway! For the credit card numbers, it was lucky that I had two credit cards (one was cosigned by my mom ages ago, and I never use it). I can imagine people new to credit who move a lot and need to look at their credit history but are unable to fulfill the requirements to see them.

By: rhbee

rhbee — Mon, 14 May 2007 13:41:52 +0000

I recently decided to check out the free credit report service but when I went on line I discovered that they wanted more proof of who I was than I was prepared to give. So I searched out a phone number so I could talk to a real peason. But this real person wanted the same thing, what were my present credit cards and their numbers. Since I’d already given my driver’s license and SS, I was really puzzled as to why the credit service that was issuing the report wouldn’t already have my credit card info. It really seemed to me like they didn’t actually have what they said they had. They wanted me to report to them so they could then report back to me.

By: reannon

reannon — Mon, 14 May 2007 10:59:21 +0000

Thanks for replying to my email, Trent! Blick: We got the free credit report and then paid $8 to get the credit score.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Mon, 14 May 2007 02:08:40 +0000

Why bother raising your credit score? As Dave Ramsey loves to point out; the FICO score is nothing but an “I love debt” score. The only thing one should really worry about financing is a house and that can be manually underwritten. I know that some insurance policies are now tied to the credit score but all are not and that can be worked around.

By: Trent

Trent — Sun, 13 May 2007 22:33:54 +0000

Gal: Cosigners enable you to improve your credit, but it’s at least somewhat risky for the cosigner, as they’re on the hook if the person with questionable credit makes bad choices.

As for the offer, my guess is that they got their credit report for free, then paid for their score somewhere.

By: Blick

Blick — Sun, 13 May 2007 22:09:23 +0000

The post mentions that they ran their credit reports through annualcreditreport.com, the government’s free program, and received their credit scores. When I tried, I was able to get my report, but not the score. Is there a way to get the score for free, or do you still need a pay a fee for that?

By: Gal Josefsberg

Gal Josefsberg — Sun, 13 May 2007 20:42:06 +0000

Sorry, one more thing to add. There was a recent article about jump starting your credit for those without a lot of credit history. I believe one of the items mentioned was having someone else put you as a cosigner on their card, especially if that card has a long and good history. Perhaps Trent could comment on this.

By: Gal Josefsberg

Gal Josefsberg — Sun, 13 May 2007 20:40:40 +0000

That comment about canceling cards is true only if you have no other old cards. For example, you really shouldn’t have more than 3 or 4 cards. So if you have 5 or more, and all of them have seven years of history, canceling the old one won’t hurt you that much. The key is having multiple lines of credit with many years of good history on all of them.

Other than getting rid of mistakes, there’s really no way to improve a credit score fast. Just need to build up credit over time.

I made the mistake of canceling my old card when I didn’t have any other cards with a long history. However, I still have a score of 780. I have three cards, the oldest one about three years old. I use two of them regularly and always pay them off on time. I also pay my mortgage on time, never use up more than 50% of my available credit card limit and never incur any other debt. Just be smart with your credit and your score will do well.