Archives
Bad Credit vs Good Credit
The Cost of Bad Credit It’s common knowledge that bad credit scores are detrimental to obtaining loans. But if a loan can be obtained with bad credit, it won’t be issued at the same interest rate as to those with good credit records. For some,.. Read More
The 411 on FICO Scores
A FICO score is at the root of whether or not you are accepted or denied credit or a loan and whether you will receive higher or lower home and auto insurance rates. Short for Fair Isaac Corporation, the company that invented the credit risk score, t.. Read More
Banks Have the Potential to Make Billions off Your Shopping Data
by Sylvia Burleigh Financial institutions and credit card issuers have found a way to make billions off their customers shopping data without letting them know about it, or charging a fee. Basically, banks are acquiring information about their .. Read More
Going Through a Divorce? What You Need to Know to Protect Your Credit History
By Sylvia Burleigh We all know the statistics; half of all marriages end in divorce. Whether the circumstances that brought your marriage to an end are tragic, dramatic or even amicable – it can be a critical time financially. At a time of d.. Read More
The Dodd-Frank Act and Your Credit Score
by Sylvia Burleigh The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law last summer and millions of credit card holders have benefited from much of its regulation. Consumers now receive notifications for rate or fee .. Read More
Cut Your Biggest Expenses and Pay Off Debt
By Sylvia Burleigh Since the beginning of the biggest recession since the depression, Americans have gotten creative on how to do a lot with very little when managing their households. Indeed, when you search terms such as saving money, credit.. Read More
The Perfect But Elusive Credit Score
By Sylvia Burleigh Believe or not, some people are obsessed with obtaining a perfect credit score according to a recent CNN Money article. In fact, so preoccupied with getting their score to 850 that the CNN Money website cleverly dubbed them the .. Read More
Rebuilding Your Credit Score After the Repair Work is Over
by Sylvia Burleigh If the last two years have shown consumers anything, is that it’s wiser to hold onto those credit cards than to let them gather dust, or else you’ll find yourself with lowered credit lines or closed accounts. Neither is ve.. Read More
Are Secured and Prepaid Cards the Road to Repairing Your Credit?
By Sylvia Burleigh If you’re in the process of repairing your credit, secured cards or prepaid cards might sound like the easy answer to a severe financial dilemma. If your one of the millions of cardholders in need of credit repair, you under.. Read More
Four Tips for Avoiding Credit Repair Scams
By Scott Gibson You have likely heard several times in your life the adage, "If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is." You can be assured those words of wisdom apply to avoiding credit-repair scams. Unfortunately, however, some unscrupulou.. Read More
7 Strange Factors that Can Hurt Your Credit Score Without You Knowing It
by Sylvia Burleigh When it came time to apply for our first loan for a single-family home 20 years ago, it came as a complete shock that we had an outstanding collection debt from a store we hadn’t frequented in five years. The outstanding $90.. Read More
Is a Debt Plan Management Right For You?
By Sylvia Burleigh From around the web we’ve heard from financial experts on debt management plans; some agencies, such as CreditCard.com, fully endorse debt management plans or DPMs while others not so much. Debt management plans, offered by .. Read More
Thinking of Closing that Credit Card Account to Improve Your Credit Rating? Think Carefully.
By Sylvia Burleigh I try to plan ahead as much as possible, especially for the holidays, so imagine my surprise when I arrive at the Target checkout and my card is declined. I had no problem using my debit card, so I used that instead, but I hav.. Read More
Introducing the Better Business Bureau (BBB)
by Gregory A. Sanders The Better Business Bureau. BBB. If you have been around business very much at all, you have probably seen the logo or heard the name. Maybe the logo made you feel a little more secure about a website you were visiting. .. Read More
Who Reports Your Credit?
If you are new to the whole credit reporting and scoring scene, you might be wondering who it is that makes these decisions about your credit worthiness. The Big Three Credit Bureaus In the United States, credit bureaus (also known as Consumer .. Read More