Get Free Credit Score – FICO Report

Rebecca asked:


I was thinking of applying for a store credit card, and I checked my credit on all 3 of the major credit reporting agencies. All of them are different with one being 50 points lower than the highest one. Do they go by the best score, or do they average out the 3 together to get a final FICO score for determination of the credit card?

Michele

Kyle Gentile asked:




It might often seem that your FICO score is a burden. You have to make conscience efforts to get and maintain a good FICO score. You also have to be a disciplined person to avoid credit traps and ruining your score. You might think what does a FICO score do for me?

In the past getting a loan in the past was not as easy as it is today. It was often a long and drawn out process, taking weeks. Worst of all, a loan offer could be unfairly based. Discriminatory lending was prevalent in the early 1900′s and led to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975. This act was designed to do several things and one was to identify where discriminatory lending practices were happening. Furthermore in the past, if a person got a loan and defaulted, they might never be able to get another just based on this one mistake. Your FICO score helps prevent all of these.

The use of a credit score is a quick method of making a lending decision. It is a representation of your default risk. Its first wide use was in the 1990′s to grant consumer credit which lead to the credit card boom. Seeing the effectiveness and speed to which FICO score granted credit, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recommended its use during mortgage lending. Since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are responsible for over half of the mortgages in the country, lenders quickly adopted the use of FICO scores. Today, with the use of FICO scores lending decisions can be made with in minutes. Mortgages do not take weeks they can take as little as a couple hours. This eliminates the wait time for consumers and helps them get into a home faster.

The use of a FICO score also eliminates any unfair credit decisions not based on your credit report. Things like age, gender, race, nationality, and martial status are not taken into account in your FICO score. This helps eliminate any prior personal opinions or biases of the lender. It makes for a more fair and objective evaluation of a persons credit standing and grants credit based on the facts.

Another benefit to consumers of the FICO score is the fact emphasis is put on the most recent events. So if you made mistakes with credit in the past they do not haunt you for the rest of your life. Items will even fall off your report in time. It allows people to move on from their mistakes and get a loan.

Your FICO score is a revolution in lending that is only really been in mainstream use since the 1990′s. It is an ever refining formula that will continue to help not only lenders, but consumers to fast and non bias loans.

Bessie

creditleaper2 asked:

creditleaper.com This Credit Repair 12-Video Course outlines how to increase your FICO score by 150 points in days. Delete bankruptcies, foreclosures, etc. Go to at http

Roland

Paul J. Marshall asked:




If you are curious about how certain actions will either improve or negatively affect your credit score, you can find out by using a FICO score simulator. A FICO score simulator is a calculator that will tell you how certain financial decisions will affect your score.

It will allow you to make “mock” financial decisions and then it will calculate you new credit score. The simulator won’t actually change your score, but it can give you some idea of how you can either improve or hurt it. For example, you can calculate how the following actions would hurt or improve your credit score: paying down the balances of your outstanding debt, missing payments, transferring balances, and paying your bills on time. Some simulators will also give you some suggested actions that will help increase your credit score.

To begin, you simply plug-in your current FICO score into the simulator. Next pick a scenario, i.e, I’m going to be late on this month’s car payment, I am planning on decreasing my credit card debt by 40%, I have paid my bills on time for six months straight. The simulator will then estimate how much your FICO score would increase or decrease based on these actions.

You may also want to determine how your FICO score would be affected if you missed a credit card for the next three months or if you declared bankruptcy. A FICO Score Simulator will help you answer these types of questions.

The purpose of the simulator is to help you make good financial decisions. It also helps you to see how your actions, even though they may appear minor, can either improve or decrease your FICO credit score. They can be a huge help for individuals who are really concerned about their credit or who are committed to raising their FICO score.

In the United States, where credit is used so freely, having a high score is paramount when it comes to getting a loan. Individuals with good credit can qualify for loans more easily and with lower interest rates and better terms. Therefore, one’s credit score is very important. The FICO score simulator is a great tool to gauge how your daily financial actions and decisions can either put you in a better situation or conversely, in situation that will likely cause you more stress and not to mention, more money.

You can find FICO score simulators online. Some are absolutely free. They are really a great tool, especially for individuals who have bad credit and are looking to improve it. Carefully and speedily determining how their actions can improve their score can give them a roadmap to doing so. Individuals can see how paying their bills on time or paying down their debts can significantly and quickly improve their credit score.

Judy

AssociatedPress asked:

While many Americans know that credit reports are easy top obtain, they may now the consequences of their credit score. AP Personal Finance Editor Trevor Delaney explains how to obtain your personal score. (Oct. 22)

Delores

Jay Peter asked:




Building a good credit score and maintaining it is, in essence, a long-term process. The best ways to raise credit score expect that you stay financially organized and learn to manage your debts wisely. No doubt, that developing good financial habits consequently helps to raise credit score. But if you’re planning to buy a house in the near future and you discover that you need only a few extra points to get better interest rates, you want to raise credit score ASAP.

You should keep in mind that in the world of credit scores, nothing happens overnight. Even when using the quickest methods to raise credit score, it takes some time for the changes to appear on your credit report. But the sooner you take action, the sooner your score will start to grow. So, here’s what you can do raise your credit score quickly.

1. Get your credit report and credit score.

You have the right to obtain a free copy of your credit report once a year from each of the major consumer reporting agencies (i.e. credit bureaus): Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

You should get all three reports, because they may differ a bit. Your credit score is a calculation based on the information on your credit report. Different companies have different formulas for calculating the score, but the credit score most commonly used is FICO score. On their website, you can make a request to get your current score.

This is the first step on your journey to raise credit score. Your next step is to…

2. Examine your credit reports carefully and search for inaccurate information.

The first time you see your credit report, you may be amazed how much information about you it actually contains. Unfortunately, not all of this information is correct. Research has actually shown that 25-50% of credit reports contain errors.

One reason why these errors occur is that you may be mistaken for someone with the same name as you, and this other person’s data ends up in your report. Another, and a much more serious cause of erroneous data is identity theft. So, if you spot outdated, incomplete or totally strange information, the next thing to do is to…

3. Determine the cause of inaccuracies on your credit report.

If you think the credit bureau has you mixed up with someone else, first make sure they have your full name spelled correctly. Also check if your social security number on the credit report is correct. Look at the address, too – if your current address differs from the one on your report, it may cause confusion.

If you do find errors like this, contact the credit bureaus to sort it out immediately. In case you notice strange accounts or payments on your report and you suspect you may be a victim of identity fraud, contact the police, as well as your creditors and credit bureaus.

4. Contact credit bureaus to dispute errors on your report.

Besides the errors in your personal data, your credit report may show late payments that actually were paid on time, closed accounts still listed as open, outstanding debts that you have paid off, and so on. If such mistakes occur, the credit bureaus are obliged to investigate and correct them.

First you have to send them a dispute letter, where you point out the errors you believe your credit report contains. Free samples of dispute letters are available on the Internet. Add copies of relevant documents to support your claim.

Credit bureaus have to investigate the inaccurate information in 30 business days and delete the errors. If the credit bureau can’t verify the negative information within this time, it has to be deleted, too. If your report gets corrected, you have the right to get a free copy of it.

You can also ask the credit bureau to send your corrected report to anyone who has inquired your records in past 6 months. Be sure to make copies of the letters you send to credit bureaus and the ones you receive!

5. Start paying your bills on time and pay off outstanding debt without closing old accounts.

In addition to disputing errors in your report, these two methods can raise credit score most quickly. Late payments that were made years ago don’t affect your credit score as much as the recent ones. Automate your bank payments and get organized, and may raise credit score within a few months.

You also may gain this delightful result if you pay off your outstanding debt. If you decide to pay off your loan, don’t close the account. Here’s the reason behind this advice. Using a lower percentage of total credit available to you raises your score, but if you close a credit account, your total available credit decreases. Hence, if you shut down the account, you may still be close to maxing out your credit – which decreases your score.

If just a few missing credit points hinder you from getting better interest rates, following the tips above may solve your problem relatively quickly. If two or three months still is too long for you to wait, there are other legal options to raise credit score quickly.

Florence

Ann Richter asked:




How much do you know about your FICO score chart? I hear you! You have a vague idea that a FICO is some sort of a score has something to do with credit, but you aren’t sure. You are asking yourself “What is a Fico Score chart, and why is it something I need to know about?” If this term leaves you scratching your head in perplexity, read on.

FICO stands for Fair, Issac and Company. A it is the summation of the score from the three major national credit bureaus, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Each bureau keeps a credit file on you, starting back when you got your first credit card, and each bureau has its own method of calculating your score. . When you request a copy of your credit report, you will also receive your score in chart form.



What Is On This Chart?

Several variables are listed in the chart, and the credit bureaus give each its own numerical score. A rather precise and complex mathematical model is used to calculate your credit score from this information, some of which is listed below -

Amount that you owe on open credit accounts Whether or not you have been delinquent on any accounts The total number of bank cards and credit cards that you have How many credit accounts you may have that carry a balance owed How many credit accounts you may have that are NOT credit card accounts, but with banks or finance companies Your account payment history and how long it has been established How many inquiries your credit file has had by other creditors in the last 12 months If the total balance owed is close to the total monetary limit on ALL your credit cards. How long a period of time your credit has been established How often you actually use your credit accounts Whether or not any of your accounts have ever been turned over to a collection agency. How close together you have either opened credit accounts, or have has inquiries made on them. Whether or not you have any cards/accounts that have a zero balance.

When you get your own FICO score from your credit report, you might wonder how your score stacks up with the scores of other people in the United States.

13 percent of the population has a credit score between 800 and 850. 27 percent of the population has a credit score between 750 and 799 18 percent of the population has a credit score between 700 and 749 15 percent of the population has a credit score between 650 and 699 12 percent of the population has a credit score between 600 and 649 8 percent of the population has a credit score between 550 and 599 5 percent of the population has a credit score between 500 and 549 2 percent of the population has a credit score between 300 and 499

Your FICO score chart is the key to your credit rating, and as such, should be guarded carefully. Taking control of your score is the key to your financial future.

Neil

Leslie Collins asked:




One of the most attractive features of an FHA loan is that you need no specific FICO score to qualify for the program.

This is great news for you if you are looking to buy a new home or are wanting to refinance your current loan.

FHA lenders are very flexible regarding credit and look mainly at your overall credit worthiness. They will not evaluate each specific negative credit item that appears on your credit report but rather look at you repayment trend over time.

FHA guidelines allow 2 missed payments (auto, credit card, mortgage etc…) over the last 2 years as a requirement to qualify for a loan.

This advantage really can help you get the home of your dreams if your past credit history has been less than spectacular but are now however more financially stable. Remember, negative credit usually effects your credit score for about 7 years. Families that are “doing well” TODAY financially are not penalized for negative credit in their past – FHA is a forward thinking program.

When you compare a FHA to a conventional loan this flexibility is amazing considering Low FICO scores virtually eliminate you from dealing with conventional banks.

But does this even matter?

Probably not, because there is no advantage many times; Lately FHA loans are advertising very attractive interest rates which are as low or even lower than conventional 30 year fixed rates from the major banks.

So as long as you have a valid social security number, are able to prove income (w2, 1099, tax return, pay stubs etc…), can establish yourself as credit worthy an FHA loan and have a minimum of 3% down-payment an FHA loan is probably well within your reach.

Jackie

Robin Boddy asked:




Your credit score is just as important as your credit report. The score most commonly used by lenders is the FICO score (named for Fair, Isaac, the company that created it). The number indicates to lenders how likely you are to make your payments on time. The figure is computer generated from your credit report, though it does not appear on your credit record. You may have a different FICO score for each of your current reports, though there unlikely to be too different unless one of the reports has a mistake or significantly different entry, and lenders may use any of those numbers or take the middle score of the three to evaluate whether you qualify for a loan or other credit, how much they’re willing to lend you and what rate of interest of charge.

Your FICO score can range from 300 to 850, the higher your number, the better. For example, a borrower with a score of 716 might get a mortgage interest rate of 5.8 5%, while a borrower with a score of 620 might get a rate of 7.44%. The difference in monthly payments at the two rates adds up to $314 or close to $3768 a year on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage of $216,000. The median FICO score is 723, you want yours to be higher.

You will probably have to pay to get your FICO score. You can obtain all three of your FICO scores and credit reports for $44.85 at http://www.myfico.com. You can also order your credit score from each of the three credit bureaus for between five dollars and eight dollars apiece. If you’ve recently applied for credit, though, your lender will undoubtedly have your score and may, if you ask, disclose it to you. Some lenders, like certain mortgage issuers, are legally required to disclose it.

Jill

Josh Riverside asked:




If you are in the market to buy a new car or a house, or even to rent property, your FICO score will be checked. The main benefit of credit scoring, lenders argue, is that they can make decisions faster by using automated systems.

You may now ask, “What is a FICO score?” A FICO score is a scoring method developed by the Fair Isaac Corp. to aid the three major credit bureaus, namely, Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. It is a computer model that assesses your credit worthiness against several other customers.

In the past, when you applied for a credit or loan, you were in complete darkness about your credit score. The lender would request the score from one or more credit bureaus and, if you wanted to access such information, you were required to a certain amount of fee. At the present, you can access your credit reports without any charge. You can also have your credit score report send to you via email or post mail free of cost, at a regular time period, such as once monthly.

In the past, if there were too many inquiries made on your credit, your credit scores use to go down. However, when you access your credit report now, it doesn’t affect your credit score. Scores also vary based on current credit activity. Since credit bureaus only calculate your score at the lender’s request, it will be based on the information in your file at that particular credit bureau, at that particular time only.

There are also many website and companies that now help customers understand and get their credit reports for free. They guide the customer through the process and teach them how to access such information. You would have seen the popular television advertisement of “Freecreditreport.com” You also see a lot of banner advertisements on the web about the subject.

Michele