Showing posts with label Credit Tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Credit Tips. Show all posts

Saturday, 19 July 2014

How to Obtain Your Credit Score and Credit Report for Free As Well As Other Options?

Buying anything on credit almost always requires initial credit report and credit score checks. Even leasing and renting property has seen its share of credit checks. Hence, keeping your credit in top shape is essential to so many people. This is especially so as higher scores and cleaner reports can help keep the interest rates lower and can help you appear more trustworthy and hence are often allowed to pay much lower down payments. There are many ways to obtain your own credit score and credit report. Although getting them for free is an option, many people choose to pay for them to get more benefits. The great thing about this is that when you pull your own credit report, your credit score is not lowered, whereas if a lender was the one checking your credit report, your score might go down by five points. This is true even if the lender does not actually end up giving you any loan.

One Time Fee

If you are interested in pulling your credit or credit score once only, you can do that. There are many online sites that provide this kind of service. The fees usually range from $3 to $20. You can seek to obtain information from one, two, or all three credit agencies. You can also ask for only the credit report or only the credit score or both. In addition, you can have it mailed to you or with online access to print it.

Monthly Options

Many sites encourage people to go for monthly plans. This way, customers can make their own accounts with log in and password for their online access. They can have unlimited times to access their information for a specified duration. Although there are many monthly options, some sites offer quarterly options instead. In addition, many of these sites give free-trial periods for a week or two. However, they ask for a copy of your credit card information so that after the trial period ends, they can automatically withdraw money for the services offered.

Free Option

Everyone is allowed to get their credit report without the credit score once a year for free. This can be obtained online but they also provide a phone number and an address for those who wish to call or mail in the request. Some basic information would be needed, like your phone number, address, social security number and date of birth. They also ask credit history related questions like car payment details. This way is great because your report can show all your information from all three top credit bureaus that other lenders see. However, people often find that the three credit agencies do not match in all details as not all lenders report their activities to all three agencies. If you wish to receive the credit score along with the report, you are asked to pay a small fee for it. The website to look for is http://www.iCashLoans.com/.

Other Options

Whenever any lender denies to give you financing after they pulled your report, they would send a letter in the mail indicating that you have 30 days to obtain your copy of the credit report for free. This is meant to help you review your credit to understand why you were declined financing by lenders. Of course, if there are any items on the credit report that are not familiar, you should contest them. Many people find fraudulent activities on their credit reports and once removed, their credit scores recover within a month or so.

How Do I Find the Vehicle That I Am Searching For?

The fastest way to apply is to fill out the online application. To start, just click to apply, and let the Best Car Search dealers call you with your pre-approval.

If you live around iCashloans and your credit score is not great, there are Indianapolis buy here pay here dealers that can accept you for financing regardless of your credit score. They finance their customers directly and don't check for credit scores. You can easily be pre-approved before you head to the dealership.

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7 Tips:How To Repair Your Credit Score

1) Hire A Credit Specialist To Repair Your Credit Score

Credit specialists can improve your score by correcting inaccurate reporting or by removing negative information in your credit report.

2) Always Pay Your Minimum Payments On Time.

If you cannot pay your minimum payment call the customer service department for the lender or creditor and make a payment arrangement. At least pay them something rather than nothing. Make an arrangement to pay the balance.

By law a lender creditor or collection agency cannot mark your credit if you are under an arrangement to pay. Usually most people make arrangements to pay once their credit is damaged. An easier way is not letting it get to that point. Payment history comprises 35% of your entire credit score!

3) Keep Your Revolving Credit Card Balances Under 30% Of Their Limit

This one is simple. Don't use more than 30% of your available credit. If you have a $10,000 credit card, then treat it like its a $3,000 credit card. If you are using more then 30% of each card pay more than the minimum payment to get it down. Ideally you would like to be at 10% or under but not zero. You want to show your creditors that you are using and not abusing your credit lines. Consumers who do not use over 30% of their credit limits for a few months are considered low risk and have much higher credit scores. Credit utilization comprises 30% of your entire credit score!

4) Pay Your Mortgage Before Other Debts

Mortgage payments are weighted differently then other payments by the bureaus. Make sure you pay at least the minimum payment on time or call to work out an arrangement if you are going to be short or behind. They will work with you if you keep them in the loop. And as long as you have an arrangement they cannot mark your credit. The worst thing you can do is to just ignore it.

5) Dispute All Collection Agency Notices

In the future, regardless of whether a debt is valid or not, dispute all notices from any collection agencies. There are certain rules and laws that these agencies have to abide by. If you read the first notice you get from a collection agency it will say "you have 30 days to dispute the validity of this debt". Send a letter along with a copy of the collection notice within your 30 day dispute period. Make sure the letter states that you "dispute the validity of this debt". It should also state that you are "requesting a cease and desist from all collection attempts via telephone. All communications regarding this debt should be in writing". Send it by certified mail to the collection agency. By law they can still contact you by phone one more time to let you know of their intentions. However, the best part about doing all this is not only will you have to deal with annoying collection agency phone calls, but once a debt is disputed IN WRITING they legally cannot mark your credit!

If a collection agency still attempts to collect by telephone write down the dates, times, who you spoke with and if possible record the message. That collection agency will be in violation of the FDCPA and you can be entitled to funds from fines and damages.

6) Set Up Installment Arrangements

Set up installment arrangements for any future tax debts. We have a clever way of dealing with past tax liens, call us for more information about that. The state and federal government doesn't play around when dealing with tax debts. They are hard to dispute the validity when you or your employer files your taxes with your social security, and birth date, and paperwork that you signed at employment. Don't let it evolve to a judgement or lien, Set up a payment plan that is appropriate for both parties. Again by law they cannot mark your credit as long as you are under a payment arrangement. Set up that arrangement BEFORE you get a lien or judgement on your credit report.

7) Don't Apply For New Credit

Here is very simple tip. Don't apply for credit unless you know you will be approved. Especially if you have been turned down recently. Ask the lender what their qualification for approval are before you apply. Mortgage lenders have very clear qualifications for approval. For instance FHA will require you to have at least a middle score of 620, 4 months of reserve mortgage payments liquid, and they require that you have no judgments, liens or accounts in collections. That's pretty clear cut right? Many auto loan lenders will approve you with low credit if you have a cosigner with good credit. If you don't meet the qualifications, or you don't have the consent of the cosigner, don't apply for the credit line. In the end it's not worth an inquiry on your credit report unless you are going to get the credit line.
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Credit Card Use Tips

Whenever possible, you should always try to pay off your credit balance completely by the end of each month. If you manage to do that, the credit card functions very much as a debit card; but you gain the amenities that credit card companies so often provide to promptly-paying customers.

Of course, this good deed may not be what it seems: it is this very reality that most people don't pay the balance completely each month that keeps the entire credit industry in business (in fact, about 69% of the $163 billion they gather in each year comes directly from this). Obviously, you understand and assent grudgingly to this as part of credit life and the cost of borrowing money.

Hidden - more often than not - in the tomes of credit-card lore, there's a practice that would widen most eyes with surprise. Far too many credit-companies exist that begin charging you interest, not from the moment they actually buy the item you charged from the merchant, but from the moment YOU charged it. This is important because there can be several days' difference between the two.

This means they are slapping you with an interest charge for no defensible reason! After all, interest can't gather on the promise of a charge; only on the charge, itself. Right?!

Why does this matter, you say? Consider: one could argue that there shouldn't be a problem since you bought the merchandise on that date. In truth, however, it isn't really fair, because this means the company has started charging you interest for an item you haven't bought yet!

In the highly automated computer systems of credit card companies, your account reflects the effects of their purchase in the time it takes an electron to fly from one end of the building to another!

If you decided to annul the purchase in the time between when you charged it and they paid the merchant, you wouldn't lose any money; so, why should they charge you interest during this inevitable "grace period"? It's a good thing that only some credit companies do this; thus, it would be wise to find one that doesn't - if you aren't the kind of consumer to rectify your credit-card balances by month's end.

It is important to realize that when dealing with credit companies, there's so much that goes on behind the scenes, it can be hard to keep track of what you need to be paying attention to with so many other daily responsibilities. Another thing to watch out for is changes from the common 25-day interest-free period on purchases.

To buttress the previous point that whereas credit companies often seem to reward customers who settle their balances by the end of the month - and thus avoid carry-over fees - this is mostly just for appearances. They can bait more patrons with this tactic; after all, they're only in business because most credit card-holders don't pay off their balances each term, and their research assures them this will never happen.

Their underlying intentions are shown by an increasingly common habit of lessening the interest-free time-span to 20 days (in many cases, with little warning!). Compounding the underhanded nature of this whole action, the grace period is lessened to about 23 or 20 days solely for those cardholders who settle the monthly balance in full.

It's almost as though they're trying to catch you unawares! Of course, they do take a percentage, and this makes that action lucrative. There is still an option, however; you can actually ask them to get you back on your previous billing cycle. Just keep in mind why credit card companies are in business, and your responsibility to keep them from digging too deeply into your pockets.

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