Yeah I heard about the legislation and thought it had already been passed. That's the problem though..the minimum balance has gotten so high to where I CAN'T afford them with the other obligations I have. I just got my first check from my 2nd job and I will file this week. So I hope to get those cards back on track. Thanks for the info though!!

after a while the credit company writes everything off... since you went so long without paying it (5 or more years) .. it kind of "goes away"....


until you try to get credit with them again.

this same thing happened to my friend. she wouldn't pay and she told the company this... lol and she also told them that she knew they would write it off...

This has already happened to me for my last 2 cycles. The way Bank of America explained it to me was this way they are getting the minimum + the finance charge which will help folks pay their cards down faster. I was already paying way over so I lucked out but I know there are some for who their old minimum was high and the new one is impossible.

Sometimes I feel like saying "Get yo' hand outta my pocket" (a la Malcolm X) :mad:

That DOES work too! I disputed some things and got 3 of them removed in 2005. I started looking more in depth at my report and was about to get one of those companies that claim to "clean up" your report. However, I realized that I could do the same thing for free, but it is very time consuming.

maybe I can help you Missam, pm me. Now you mentioned something about filing....I hope it is NOT bankruptcy. If you didn't file before October 16th 2005, the type of bankrupcy that will be allowed will be based on your income.......

Whatever you do, don't go to those credit repair agencies, it's just like filing bankruptcy.

The mean score is 720 in America, if you aren't in the 700's you have average to below average credit, which simply means your rates may be higher because you are considered a higher risk.

Good thread
 

This is a great thread. I pull my credit report more often these days because of identity theft. I even put an alert on there in case some new line of credit is requested, the merchant must contact me and ask certain questions.

I was also able to dispute quite a few items and they were removed. In addition, my name was misspelled and there were a few names on my report that were not me. Those were removed also. I was able to do 95% of my corrections and disputes online.

Re: Good thread
 

If possible, it's actually best to pursue disputes around November. Around Nov, credit card companies are so busy focused on consumers spending money for X-Mas that they usually forget to respond to disputes. For your dispute to be removed, the creditor can't reply within 30 days.

FICO Score
 

I pulled my credit reports again. FYI: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp <------get it free!
Anywho, I got my FICO score, and it is in the lowest range, I have paid off my debts (which I found out afterwards may have lowered it being it was so far gone), disputed and got some removed, and only have a student loan (still in deferment). Any ideas on how to make the score go up? I know when I start paying on my loan it will go up. how fast will it rise?

Sharla

not very....it will go up over time say 3 -6 months.....If you really want to see change get a secured cc and utilize only 30% of the cc loam limit and pay it off on time...Your FICO depends on the lines of positive credit you have reporting. Since, you have paid off old debt which in effect lowers your score you must get more credit (to show how well you pay debt) since the debt you paid off was factored into the scoring model as a slow payer/risk.

Agencies Adopt New Credit Scoring System
 

NEW YORK - The nation's three major consumer credit bureaus have created a new credit scoring system designed to make it easier for financial institutions to evaluate loan applications and to give consumers a better way of measuring their financial health.


The credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — announced Tuesday that they're introducing "VantageScore" to banks, mortgage lenders and credit card companies immediately. The new scores will be available to consumers after the lender rollout, probably later this year.

"There's clearly been a need out there to have a consistent scoring model that works across all three reporting agencies' data," said Kerry Williams, group president of Experian's credit services division. "And consumers need a consistent score that they can understand and use in their own financial lives."

Credit scores traditionally have been three-digit numbers that lenders used to evaluate the creditworthiness of borrowers. The scores reflect how much debt a consumer is carrying, how good they've been at paying back loans and how many credit applications they have outstanding.

They're important because lenders use them to determine if they'll loan money to consumers and at what rate. The higher the score, the more creditworthy the consumer is considered and the lower the interest rate the consumer will be charged.

The agencies in the past each used their own proprietary formulas to generate their own scores, meaning that a lender dealing with a consumer's application for a credit card or a mortgage might have to reconcile three widely different scores.

With the new system, a single methodology will be used to create the scores for all three credit bureaus, the agencies said.

As a result, scores will be "virtually the same across all three of the national credit reporting companies," said Experian spokesman Donald Girard. Any difference in the scores provided by each agency will reflect differences in the data they've collected in consumers' files, he said.

The credit reporting agencies said in their announcement that VantageScore "will provide consumers and businesses with a highly predictive, consistent score that is easy to understand and apply."

Consumer advocacy groups expressed concern that the new scoring system would not eliminate one of the biggest problems in the industry which is incorrect information in consumers' credit files.

"That means it's a new recipe, but the same old ingredients," said Jean Ann Fox, director of consumer protection with the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America in Washington, D.C. "It doesn't address the underlying accuracy of the credit reports on which the scores are based."

In addition to the credit agency scores, some large lenders generate their own internal scores, often using credit bureau data. And many lenders, especially those in the mortgage business, use FICO scores, which are named for the Minneapolis-based Fair, Isaac Corp. that developed them.

Thomas G. Grudnowski, the chief executive officer of Fair, Isaac, said that "for the past 20 years, we've been both cooperating and competing with the credit bureaus ... and that will continue." He added that it could take a long time to establish a competing system.

"Do the customers ... really want to go through the pain of converting to another system?" he asked. "I think only time will tell."

Dana Wiklund, senior vice president for predictive sciences at Equifax, said that VantageScore "is a new, competitive product to give lenders greater choice, and hopefully greater accuracy, in credit scoring." He added: "The rate of adoption will determine ultimately if the (new) score replaces any in-house or generic scores in the market."

Executives at the credit agencies said that the bureaus did not need to consult with federal regulators before developing their new scoring process. But a number of executives, including Wiklund, traveled to Washington, D.C., on Monday to brief bank, savings bank and credit union regulators on the new scoring process.

"The role of the regulators is to look at the safety and soundness of the institutions they oversee," Wiklund said. "They're very keenly interested so that models don't have disparate impact ... on low income vs. high income individuals, minority vs. non-minority, that kind of thing."

VantageScore ratings will range from 501 to 990. The top end is slightly higher than scores currently in use.

In a separate statement, Experian said the new scores will be grouped on "the familiar academic scale." Experian gave these groupings, with A and B being the best potential borrowers and D and F being the weakest:

A — 901-990

B — 801-900

C — 701-800

D — 601-700

F — 501-600

Colleen Tunney, spokeswoman for TransUnion, told a conference call with reporters and credit industry representatives that the new score was created by looking at millions of consumer files at the same time to ensure consistent readings across the three bureaus' data.

David Rubinger, spokesman for Equifax, said the new score was expected to reduce the variance in a consumer's scores by about 30 percent compared with what it was under the old system.

He said the score would reflect a consumer's frequency of borrowing, delinquency in paying bills and other "file content." But Rubinger and other credit bureau spokesmen said it was too soon to provide the specific weights for the components.

VantageScore is being independently marketed and sold separately through each of the three national credit reporting companies through licensing agreements with VantageScore Solutions LLC, the joint announcement said. The spokesmen said that VantageScore was jointly owned by the three credit bureaus. They said it did not yet have a headquarters, although an informational Web site had been set up at http://www.vantagescore.com.

The credit reporting agencies are operated by Equifax Inc. of Atlanta, Experian Information Solutions Inc. of Costa Mesa, Calif., and TransUnion LLC of Chicago.

Tips to Building Your Credit Score
 

I just graduated from Graduate School and I am working on repairing my credit and raising my credit score. Are there any tips that I can get that will lead me back on the right path. My goal is to be above 600.

Also, I am looking to get my credit score without it affected my actual score. I have heard people say that when you check your score it usually reduces it to maybe 5-8 points. Can I get some help?

Thanks in advance!

Don't open up store credit cards. Just use your Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Discover. Having a lot of credit cards lowers your credit score. Also pay your bills on time and in full. That increases your score.

www.creditboards.com is a GREAT credit resource.

^^^Creditboards is an okay resource if you want to repair your credit by letterwriting, but the best source if you want to take the litigation route and really sock it to 'em, is artofcredit.com (currently offline for maintenance, will return soon).

I can only speak for myself and say the I got great results following what I learned on CB. To each their own.