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Actually, as long as you're not opening new credit cards, and just "rate shopping" for a mortgage, car loan, student loan, etc... FICO says find the load within 45 days and you're good. Source

Just something to beware of with security freezes. A few months ago I did freeze my accounts at the credit reporting agencies because my tax preparer recommended it as a proactive move to prevent identity theft.

I have a credit card that reports my current FICO score monthly. The month after I froze my accounts my FICO score dropped by 57 points. Looking back over the last year, my rating had moved up 11 points before this unexpected drop, so I think it's likely that the change was caused by initiating the credit freeze.

It doesn't matter as my credit history is frozen, but if I do need to give someone access to my credit ratings for any reason (buying a new car, getting a new job, whatever) then I presume the much lower score will be shown.

The formula that is used to calculate FICO scores varies depending upon the age of your credit history and other things such as factors associated with your socio group. In other words, your score can change for reasons that are unrelated to your finances or to anything you have done. However 57 points sounds like a big jump.

http://www.myfico.com/credited...

Also, the score that you bought is not the ones that the banks see.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/2...
http://www.consumerreports.org...

His loan officer told him his credit score would reflect more positively if he used only about 60% of his available credit line each month, and left 15 or 20 dollars per month in carryover balance, instead of paying off the entire balance each month.

Truth or bullshit?

Bullshit, to an extent. First, FICO only sees your balance as it's reported. When your card company reports it to the credit reporting agencies depends on the card, but it'll typically be shortly after the statement date. You can use 100% of the card's credit, then pay it off a dozen times over the course of the month but if the issuer reports $0 to the CRAs, the FICO score pulled will reflect that.

You also want to be careful about where you leave balances. Now this is one of the areas where different FICO formulas will give different results. The overall message is this: having a zero balance reported on all cards is fine. You'll have pretty much full points on the revolving credit portion of your FICO score by doing this. It's possible to squeeze a small number (typically single digits) out of your score by keeping about 9% utilization on your revolving accounts. Where it gets messy is that different scoring models treat where that balance sits in different ways, but I honestly wouldn't worry about that; just pay them off and make sure they're at $0 when the issuers report them. You can find more about this sort of thing at the MyFICO forums at http://ficoforums.myfico.com/

Keep in mind that if your son is looking for a vehicle loan, that's going to be an auto-enhanced FICO score, which you can't get your hands on until he actually applies. That won't change much from what you can pull on your own if he hasn't had car loans before. As a general rule, if he's had car loans and paid on time as agreed, his auto-enhanced FICO score will be somewhat higher than his regular FICO score. If he's had car loans and didn't pay as agreed, it can be a bit lower (possibly quite a bit lower).

Word of advice on vehicle loans: shop around and be smart about it. Did you know that if the dealership shops you around to different banks and finds one that'll finance you at 5%, they can tell you 10% and keep the difference? Know your score before you walk in the door so they can't try pulling a fast one on you. Also, don't walk in the door without financing already available. Why? Because you then have all the power and you can shop like a cash buyer. Since you have a relationship with a credit union, it's likely you've been thinking about just going through them for it. They probably even have pretty good rates (credit unions are often quite good). When you apply for some types of credit, like a credit card, the issuer will do a "hard pull" on your credit to check your score and credit history and that inquiry will cost you a few points. However, some credit types like mortgages and vehicle loans have a grace period allowing you to shop around for the price of a single inquiry. So when he's ready to buy, have him make sure his report is accurate and clean as possible (no 30 day lates or other delinquencies on any of the three reports - and yes, check all 3), then shop around with the credit union, other banks you may have a relationship with, anyone who's advertising good rates, etc.

Many places will run through a quick approval process over the phone and if approved, they'll mail you a check good for x number of days (usually anywhere from a couple weeks to a month or two) for up to y amount of money. The loan doesn't actually happen until you fill out the check and hand it to someone, so start with finding the best deal before you go to any dealership, then get that check in hand. Obviously shop around for the car as well, but once you've got it narrowed down to a few dealerships, walk in and let them know right away you have that check in hand. Negotiate like you've got a suitcase full of cash in hand because that's essentially what you have. Try and find

The whole point of a "credit score" is horribly broken.

The idea isn't bad. The implementation is okay, though it can be gamed to some degree. The biggest issue most people actually have with it comes down to a serious lack of financial education. It isn't the easiest or most intuitive system; it's the one that's worked well for a long time thanks to a lot of trial and error.

In order to get approved for debt, you must have debt.

Now that's just untrue. If it were true, you'd have a chicken and egg problem with debt. The reality is that certain types of credit/debt (e.g. student loans) don't care whether you have other credit/debts or not. Some types of credit/debt (e.g. credit cards) are rate-sensitive to whether you've demonstrated - through your behavior with previous credit/debts - the likelihood that you'll stick to the terms of the new credit vehicle. Some types of credit/debt (e.g. a mortgage) are much more difficult to get at all without a demonstrated ability to manage credit/debt responsibly. That's due to the fact that different types of credit have different risk profiles. A credit card company can set a ceiling on how much the issuer can lose if you're a high or unknown risk. When it comes to a mortgage, you're talking about tying yourself to the borrower for a very long time with an asset that could tank in value anywhere during that time. Since student loans survive everything up to and including the end of the world, they're easy to get.

If you have money in the bank and no monthly debt payments you have a reduced score.

The first part is another myth. The amount of money you have in the bank means absolutely zero to a FICO score. It means something to a mortgage company, but that's it. FICO scores are completely unaffected by money in the bank. The second is somewhat true, depending on circumstances. Cracking 800 is going to be very tough without some sort of installment loan (vehicle or mortgage). That said, you can hit top-tier rate scores (740+, even 760+) without either of those. You can have credit cards you pay off every single month and hit the scores you need to secure the best available rates. No debt required. It's just tougher.

It's a SCAM! A scheme to make sure that you are constantly in debt, and yet it's perfectly legal.

Wait, what? People with the highest FICO scores typically have little to no debt, aside from perhaps a mortgage, maybe a car loan. It's rare that they'll have any serious credit card debt or other revolving accounts with any substantial balances. In fact, having substantial balances on your revolving credit accounts hurts your score. The point isn't to keep anyone in debt, it's to provide a score that tells potential lenders how likely it is that an individual they've never met before will stick to the terms of their agreement if they're granted credit.

I don't have a lot of debt so have a laughably low credit score.

If your credit score is "laughably low", it isn't because you don't have enough debt. In reality, what drives your score is 5 simple things. The largest component is payment history. Don't pay back debts? Bad history, bad score. A perfect score here is no delinquencies or bankruptcies. Any accounts listed should be "paid as agreed" or something to that effect. If you have no debts, pay your utilities and medical bills (things that report delinquencies to the credit reporting companies), and pay that car loan on time, you should have a perfect score here. The second is the balance of all your revolving accounts. No balances on credit cards? Low balances relative to total available credit? Perfect or near perfect score. That's 65% of the total score right there. More info here: http://www.myfico.com/credited... (bank balance isn't listed because it doesn't apply).

No one cares about the 3x income limit for a buying a house. That went out the window with down payments and needing an income back in the over a decade ago.

You would think a housing bust would have changed that, but just to pick a random google result try:

http://www.myfico.com/loancenter/mortgage/calculators/loanbalancelimit.aspx

Enter 12500 for the monthly income and click to the results, you won't see anything anywhere near $450000 (yes that ignores the insurance and property tax fields, it's not exactly accurate anyway...)

Everything you do has an online score that has a given value to someone. Your slashdot account (and similar accounts) has an online score from any number of companies that monitor such websites for third parties. They look for for your influential posters, political views, shills accounts, who you look for and so on. You would then be valued according to your usefulness to the organization. These companies range from managing online reputations for companies to countries (ever notice certain stories get a lot of hits from Venezuela etc). Certainly facebook, twitter and similar accounts have companies that watch your reputation and score it as well.

If it's Amazon and you are a reviewer of products and nobody finds your reviews useful than your value is low. If your reviews are well thought of and highly considered you will start to get packages from companies hoping to a review. After a while you could become a professional reviewer without ever paying for packages.

Even things like credit scores aren't standardized anymore and haven't been for years. You could be a perfectly acceptable risk to buy a house, and get turned down for a credit card. You will have a different credit score from each agency based on what type of vendor is requesting your score and for what purpose. You will have one number for employment, another for renting, another for getting a car loan and so on.

The last I checked there are about 1500 different types of credit scores alone (do you know your behavior score?) and they change all the time. Your scores change all the time based on what you buy, where you buy it and when you buy it. Welcome to the world of big data. Don't fear big government, it's big business that you need to worry about.

There's an abusive twist of logic that shows that every American owes China about $120,000 right now; imagine if you were called on it.

We're facing a situation where our Government has essentially become the welfare family down the street who quit their job and keep filing for credit cards. This one was $21,000, the new one they're giving me $35,000, I'll do the 14 month interest-free balance transfer... ooh, this bank is offering me a card for $50,000... and so on. I know people who have credit cards with $120,000 limits and they make less than I was when I worked at K-Mart.

Essentially, the government only operates by taking on more and more debt, with no ability to control it. If the government defaults, it can't operate; so imagine the Government shutdown, plus they shut down food stamps and WIC--or print money to pay for welfare. If that stuff just shuts down, hundreds of millions (47% of the 300 million is about 1.4 hundreds of millions) will be starving on the streets--and the lack of income to shops from their purchases will lead to an economic crash, loss of jobs, further economic damage, etc. Almost everyone will be starving. If they print money, suddenly all your cash and your salary become worthless (pre-WW2 Germany style).

You're living in a fantasy. You have big screen TVs? So does the welfare family down the street. They had them when they cost $5000. Are they richer than you or just more deluded?

I wonder how many of those complaints are about "HouseHold Bank" or the BestBuy MasterCard?

Issues:

- If you make certain payments (ie: more than 50% or balance due or pay in full or more than 1 payment every 30 days) they will place a 14 day hold on your funds

- Requireing "Rush Fees" even for online payments when made less within 4 days of due date

- $20.00 "cash advance fee" charged because some buisness is on their list as offering "cash transfers" even though the item was NOT for a cash transfer

- If you have a $1000.00 limit, but then end up with a credit (eg: $1200.00), and have a $300.00 hold, your availible balance is still only $700.00. Makes it hard to by a TV or even a 64gb cellular ipad.

BTW... some HSBC cards are being bought out by Capital One... so buyer beware

I hope that this site would allow people to realize what crooks HSBC really are...

I have had all the above happen with me, but it has also happened to MANY others:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/hsbc-payment-hold-anyone-experience-this/td-p/159048/page/1
http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/BestBuy-Com/hsbc-14-day-hold/td-p/100368
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/hsbc-credit-card.html

You can have an excellent credit score by holding a single credit card that you never use. (This is true of any other kind of loan, but credit cards are generally the only credit you can hold at zero cost.) The only time this would be a problem is that these days, some credit card companies will close your account if you don't use your card occasionally. Many, however, don't.

In fact, many never-using-credit behaviors positively influence your credit score. If you don't request credit, you should have no recent credit inquiries (which reduce your score). If you don't use credit, your credit utilization ratio should be 0% (as good as it gets) and you should have zero late payments (as good as it gets).

When I got a home loan, I had a single credit card with a very low limit that I never used and was in the top rate bracket.

I don't get it, are you trolling me? You're very good at describing what you feel but you've provided absolutely no sources to back up your guesses.

Since you don't like financial bloggers or wikipedia's explanations, let's go right to the source (very clearly linked to on the wikipedia article). Myfico.com. Myfico.com is run by Fair Isaac.

http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/WhatsInYourScore.aspx

Section, "Amounts Owed" (30% of total score): "Proportion of credit lines used (proportion of balances to total credit limits on certain types of revolving accounts)". Revolving accounts--credit cards.

Nope. MyFICO The scores you get from the credit reporting agencies are generally not the scores that are actually used to extend credit and thus are not even worth the paper they are printed on - or the pixels on the screen.

They don't have to delete information more than 7 years old. They have to delete negative credit information more than 7 years old.

Alias names, SSNs, and DOBs are bad info. People have gotten arrested because of these. As for deleting info after 7 years, you're right. Looking at a credit report from Equifax I got late last year it lists an address almost 10 years old (as of the date of the report). It also has an employer I last worked for more than 15 years go. It doesn't list my last employment though, from 13 years ago, I wonder if Experian or TransUnion lists it.

And the "alias" isn't credit information so it can remain indefinitely as well.

But if it's inaccurate or incomplete info they still have to investigate and correct it if is wrong. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires it.

Falcon

Credit reports and credit scores are two distinct things. Credit reports are indeed itemized lists of various items. "Credit score" usually refers to the Fair-Isaac Company (FICO) score, which is used as a proxy for the content of your credit report in a variety of transactions, the most important of which is borrowing money.

What this all has to do with peace rallies, I don't have the foggiest.

More and more people being able to use your credit score to decide any/every thing of their business with you.

That's not government or even the credit bureaus.

Individual lenders make the decision using the information provided.

Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian are the the information providing business - they don't offer or deny credit. And they aren't any secret conspiracy and you can (and SHOULD) check your credit scores and reports (http://www.myfico.com/ is a good place to go).

A lender is free to give a loan to someone with a 300 (horrible, horrible, horrible beyond belief) FICO score. It's legal, but they likely won't get any money back. Why? The scores measure risk. Without scores it would be harder to determine risk, so there would be more defaults and thus higher interest rates and it would be harder for people to get loans in general. Less companies would feel safe offering credit at all. It would take longer to get approvals, no 30 second approvals for credit. Furthermore, there would be more opportunities for discrimination. Back in the day it was almost universal that African-Americans had an extremely hard time getting credit and the rates were outragous. Things are FAR from perfect and much of that is still true, but things are somewhat better, much due to civil rights activism and laws, some due to public perceptions changing and changes in people's wealth and equality, but credit scores are a part of the improvement. If an African-American with a 725 (quite good - will almost certainly pay back) FICO scores gets denied for a $250K house, and a white person with a 550 (pretty lousy - good luck getting paid!) gets it, then it is MUCH easier to make a case that it was discrimination. Without scores, the courts would have to compare lending records, and the lender could just cherry pick items from both reports to justify their decision (e.g. the black guy's credit history was only 65 months and the white guy's was 123 months) and the case would not be as cut and dried).

Also credit scores let you objectively know where you stand.

Credit scoring protects the consumer, informs consumers, levels the playing field, helps to allievate discrimination, makes more credit available, allows credit to be offered at lower rates, and expedites credit approval processes from days to seconds.

Yes, the financial system is often unfair, yes there is rampant racial discrimination especially against African-Americans, yes, the people getting denied checking accounts from a ChexSystems record is often unfair (kicks people when they are down, etc - but it is the banks doing the denying), yes there is wage disparity and yes these things NEED to be fixed.

But FICO scores aren't evil, they aren't the mark of the beast, Fair and Issac aren't part of the Illuminati and scores and the credit bureaus which provide the information that goes into them and the company which calculates and provides them aren't an evil fascist conspiracy.

Sorry to disappoint you.

Yeah, most of you will probably tell me I need to get a tinfoil hat. Now what DID happen to Elvis?

As for making it harder to get mistakes corrected... As if it's a walk in the park now. Try having your identity stolen; You're looking at two years friend. How about having the same first name, middle initial, and last name of someone who has filed bankruptcy. That will take a bit longer. The latter is something my brother has been dealing with for the better part of a decade. Apparently, the good folks at the credit agencies don't understand that he didn't have a $15,000 credit line at age 4.

Frankly though, I'm against the whole process. It would be unconstitutional/unlawful for the US Government to do this, so they just farm it out to private industry. I don't get it. Slashdotters bitch and moan about TIA or MATRIX, yet "Oh FICO? That's grand!"

note that the free credit file disclosure is not required to (and probably will not) contain your computed FICO (Fair Isaac & Co.) number relating to your credit rating. this is the number proprietarily computed and available (at a cost to you) from
Experian, TransUnion, or Equifax. the number ranges from around 500 to 850 and could be different from the three sources.
http://www.myfico.com/myFICO/FAQ/FICOScores.asp?fi re=5

I tried to use Google News to find a registration-free link. No luck. Will this do?

Dumpster-diving bears at greater risk

It's not about bears stealing your identity, though I pity the bear that applies for a Visa card with a FICO as bad as mine! But it is an interesting tale:

Then there are the people: One older woman set out a batch of syrup-slathered pancakes for the bears, and some parents smeared peanut butter on their children's faces so they could photograph cubs licking it.

Where's Darwin when you need him?

Thank you to all for your help! Here's my action plan:

* I know I didn't have any unknown outstanding debts on my record in April, but there are some medical bills that may have been added since then. I'll get a new credit report and see what's been going on lately. I used myFICO once before, but their price seems to have gone up... I'll have to look for an alternative. Fortunately, I've been turned down enough times while looking for new home financing, that I should be able to get a free report. :)

* If nothing shows up there, I'll follow up on the company name that this AC managed to get out of the 800 number. NCO Credit Services has three numbers and several emails listed on their "Contacts" page... someone should be able to tell me if they have a gruff-voiced robot that calls and leaves "non solicitation messages".

* Once I feel like I have a clue who's calling, I'll be more comfortable telling them who I am. Your information has been very valuable, especially the part about collection agencies in the US being barred from costing me money when they collect. That implies that these folks *will* care that they're calling on a cell phone.

Thanks again, everyone, for your help. Good luck, and God bless!

I got this "bad information" here among other places. Here's a link to a shorter explanation from the Fair&Isaac website, the people who make the credit score and provide them to Transunion, Equifax, etc.

Sorry, but 10% of your credit score is how many credit checks you've had in the last year. It's not at ALL neutral, unless you're the one checking. If someone told you that, they were misinformed. Here's an excerpt from the site I linked to...

# 35% of the score is based on your payment history. This makes sense since one of the primary reasons a lender wants to see the score is to find out if (and how timely) you pay your bills. The score is affected by how many bills have been paid late, how many were sent out for collection, any bankruptcies, etc. When these things happened also comes into play. The more recent, the worse it will be for your overall score.

# 30% of the score is based on outstanding debt. How much do you owe on car or home loans? How many credit cards do you have that are at their credit limits? The more cards you have at their limits, the lower your score will be. The rule of thumb is to keep your card balances at 30% or less of their limits.

# 15% of the score is based on the length of time you've had credit. The longer you've had established credit, the better it is for your overall credit score. Why? Because more information about your past payment history gives a more accurate prediction of your future actions.

#10% of the score is based on the number of inquiries on your report. If you've applied for a lot of credit cards or loans, you will have a lot of inquiries on your credit report. These are bad for your score because they indicate that you may be in some kind of financial trouble or may be taking on a lot of debt (even if you haven't used the cards or gotten the loans). The more recent these inquiries are, the worse for your credit score. FICO scores only count inquiries from the past year.

# 10% of the score is based on the types of credit you currently have. The number of loans and available credit from credit cards you have makes a difference. There is no magic number or combination of types of accounts that you shouldn't have. These actually come more into play if there isn't as much other information on your credit report on which to base the score.