Category: Credit Score & Credit Repair
How Student Loan Debt Factors into Your FICO® Score
By Tom QuinnThis year’s summer break may be a bit more stressful if you are a college student who plans on taking out subsidized federal student loans to help pay for upcoming tuition. Unless Congress takes action this summer to restore lower rates, new student loans will have interest rates twice what they were in the spring semester (3.4 percent to 6.8 percent). You don’t need to be a math major to know this is not good news.This difference in interest rates will increase the total amount of money you end up investing in your education. And it will likely impact a lot of US consumers.With education costs rapidly outpacing inflation, more students and their parents are taking out student loans to pay for education. Based
How Employment Credit Checks Keep Qualified Applicants From Getting the Job
by Amy TraubToday, it is common for employers to look at job applicants’ personal credit history before making a hiring decision. According to a survey of human resources professionals, nearly half of employers check an employee’s credit history when hiring for some or all positions.1 The practice is hardly limited to high-level management positions: even a brief look at a popular job listing website reveals that employers require credit checks for jobs as diverse as doing maintenance work, offering telephone tech support, assisting in an office, working as a delivery driver, selling insurance, laboring as a home care aide, supervising a stockroom and serving frozen yogurt.2 Some employers also conduct credit checks on existing employees, often when they are considering a promotion. Executive Summary (PDF)Employment Credit
Debt Collection Complaints Rise
WASHINGTON, Dec, 20(UPI) — The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said complaints about aggressive debt collectors had jumped 73 percent since 2008, a symptom of a sluggish economy.“We’ve seen a high level of complaints, and I think some of it is collectors realizing in hard times they may have to press that much harder to get someone to pay,” the agency’s chief debt collection lawyer Tom Pahl said.“And a lot of them are pressing,” he said.The agency handled 180,928 complaints about debt collection agencies in 2011, making it the No. 1 industry it terms of complaints filed, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.Roughly half of the complaints concern abusive phone calls. But complaints also involve legal tactics undertaken by debt collectors. Many of those complains involve
The Credit Score That You See – NOT The Same As Lenders See
The credit score you receive may be much higher or lower than the one a lender uses when deciding whether to give you a mortgage, credit card or auto loan, a new government report finds.One out of five consumers is likely to receive a score that is “meaningfully” different from the score used by a lender to make a credit decision, according to study from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that analyzed 200,000 credit files from the three major credit bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.As a result, many of these consumers receive either better or worse terms on mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and other credit products.”This study highlights the complexities consumers face in the credit scoring market,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray in
Disputing Credit Report Information, What Happens to my FICO Scores During The Dispute?
By John Ulzheimer President of Consumer Education at SmartCredit.com,I recently received this question from a consumer regarding a rumor they heard about how disputing credit information impacts their FICO credit scores…“I’ve read on the Internet that when someone disputes information on their credit reports their credit scores will improve because the disputed item no longer counts in their scores. Is that true”As you’ve probably figured out by now, there’s a enormous amount of information about credit scores floating around on the Internet. Some of it is accurate, a lot of it is not. This consumer’s question is actually a good one because there is variable treatment of credit information when it’s being disputed. But, it’s not as simple as saying, “no, it doesn’t count in
The Worst Loan That You Can Default On Is…..
I think we’d all agree that the past few years have been tough on tens of millions active credit consumers. Foreclosures continue to be a huge problem, we’re now in $800 million of credit card debt, and our student loan debt just crossed the $1 trillion mark. This means it’s likely that loan defaults will increase over the next year.I’m writing this for the consumers who find themselves in one of those difficult places where you have to decide which bills you’re going to pay each month. You can’t afford to pay all of them, but you can afford to pay some of them.Now, who’s getting your money? Before you answer the question there are a variety of things to consider.Which default is the
Can Bad Credit Ruin Your Job Search?
Have you ever applied for a job and wondered if your bad credit would affect the outcome? Pre-employment credit checks aren’t that uncommon these days. According to a survey released by the Society for Human Resource Management in 2010, 13 percent of the companies surveyed check the credit reports of all candidates and 47 percent check some candidates.Should you be worried if you have a poor credit history? Employment-related credit checks are legal in most states, but there are limits to what employers can see and how they can use your credit information. Here’s what you need to know about credit reports and your job search.Contrary to popular belief, employers can only see your credit report not your credit score. Credit reporting agencies do not provide
How Tax Liens Affect Your Credit Score
Tax day 2012 has come and gone. If you’ve already gotten your tax refund, then congratulations! And if you had to write a check, hopefully it wasn’t too painful. For those of you who blew off your taxes or decided to play games with your returns, I’d like to introduce you to the phrase: tax lien.A tax lien protects the government’s (either state or Federal) right to claim your property if you don’t pay your tax obligations. A lien can be attached to your money or your property. When the IRS or your state’s tax authority files a lien against you they do so as a public record. This means anyone, including credit bureaus, can see the lien.All three of the major credit reporting agencies (Equifax,
Can Your "Employment Credit Score" Hurt Your Chances At Getting A Job?
By Robert Linkonis Sr.I’ve often defined and called out the “Myth of Credit score and Employment” as the Unicorn of the credit world—a lot of people have heard of this, but nobody has actually ever seen a case where a credit score caused an applicant to be denied employment on this factor alone …In trying to dispel this idea altogether, I have noted many cases – all exposed in this blog – but Suze Orman’s recent campaign to promote her new Prepaid Debit Card – in which she eludes to the fact that not having a FICO score could cost consumers a job… Whaaaaaaaaaa ???Suzi and I have never been friends, but — what is she telling her prospective customers?Here’s the truth: Credit scores are never sold by
Can Debt Collectors Contact You via Social Media?
.Fantastic strategies to preempt unwanted calls or other communication from collectors:By Susan Johnston The Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) was designed to protect consumers against abusive practices by the debt collections industry. But when FDCPA took effect in 1978, few people could have anticipated how Facebook and Twitter would infiltrate our daily lives. In recent years, a handful of lawsuits by consumers who were allegedly contacted by collectors through social media have brought the issue to light.One strategy collections agencies use, according to Michelle Dunn, a 24-year veteran of the debt-collection industry and author of The Guide to Getting Paid, is to set up a fake profile and try to friend someone (however, a few states have laws against online impersonation). “If you look
We Like NACA
By: Robert W Linkonis Sr.I tell all my clients all the time that I am the “Debt Collector Terrorist”. This is because a large part of my credit improvement program is getting on the phone with collection agencies, banks, finance companies and debt collectors to make them violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. This forces them to “cease debt collection activities” and work out a settlement or cancellation of the debt.In the Richmond Times Dispatch last week, I heard about the NACA event coming to the Richmond Convention Center for four days. They were coming to Richmond to help homeowners who are in risk of losing their homes work with the banks to find a solution to help them to avoid foreclosure. I was
