Credit Repair

This one sounds logical, especially when a mortgage broker tells you that lenders are suspicious of people who have lots of unused credit available to them. What’s to keep you, after all, from rushing out and charging up a storm?
Of course, if you think about it, what’s kept you from racking up big balances [...]

Some of the phony credit repair places blitz credit bureaus with disputes about anything and everything. In the past, this might have been temporarily effective if the credit bureaus removed the disputed items while they investigated. These days, though, the bad stuff typically stays on your file during the investigation, so you don’t even get [...]

Bankruptcy does deal a devastating blow to your score, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get credit afterward.
How quickly you’ll reestablish credit and how much you’ll pay for it will depend largely on your behavior after you file for bankruptcy. If you start handling credit responsibly-paying your bills on time, not running up big [...]

Sometimes this is phrased as “credit counseling is as bad as bankruptcy” or “credit counseling is as bad as Chapter 13 bankruptcy.” None of these statements is true.
A bankruptcy filing is the single worst thing you can do to your credit score. By contrast, the current FICO formula completely ignores any reference to credit [...]

One of the fastest ways to boost a score is to lower your debt utilization ratio-the difference between the amount of revolving credit that’s available to you and the amount that you’re using.
One simple way to improve your ratio is to redistribute your debt. If you have a big balance on one card, for [...]

The theory behind this myth is that lenders will see a closed account on your credit report and, if not informed otherwise, will assume that a disgusted creditor cut you off because you screwed up somehow.
Of course, as you know by now, many lenders never see your actual report. They’re just looking at your [...]

You don’t need to carry a balance on your credit cards and pay interest to have a good score. As you’ve read several times already, your credit reports-and thus the FICO formula-make no distinction between balances you carry month to month and balances that you payoff. Smart consumers don’t carry credit card balances for any [...]

Some people are so suspicious of credit that they advise giving up credit cards and living on a cash-only basis. They acknowledge that most people need mortgages and auto loans, but they feel the best way to impress a lender is by living a credit-free life.
The credit-scoring formula is designed to judge how well [...]

No amount of exclamation points makes it so, Lisa. Next to the myth about closing accounts, the myth that you can hurt your score just by checking your credit report seems to be the most pervasive-and potentially destructive.

Rapid rescoring services came about because too many people were losing loans or paying too much interest because of credit bureau inaccuracies. Before you get excited, though, you should learn what these services can and can’t do:
• They can’t deal with you directly as a consumer-Rapid rescoring is typically offered by small credit-reporting agencies, [...]