Your Credit and Ex Spouse
Protect Your Identity!
Nothing can ruin your credit quicker than charges your ex is running up that you are responsible for. For example medical charges! These can add up fast and before you know it, you have a pile of bad debt Click Here! . Take it from me; I’m talking from personal experience.
Make sure you have some sort of document such as a judgment from divorce court stating that your spouse is responsible for his/her own medical and co pays! Don’t forget procedures and treatments that are not covered by your health coverage.
Just today I received three collection letters with charges adding up over $2500! I’m the responsible party on our health coverage. However, per the court she is responsible for her own “out of pocket” expenses. I will be faxing a copy of the court judgment to the collection agency on Monday! So many people, particularly men get burned this way. It can take months or even years to undo the damage of an angry ex.
You don’t have to be a victim! Take charge of your credit and finances and protect yourself. If you are going through a divorce or have already been divorced watch your credit like a hawk. Sometimes it’s not always a stranger who does harm to you. More often than not, it’s someone who is close or in this case, used to be close to you!
Categories: consumer info Tags: bad debt, credit repair, debt, divorce court, finance
Credit Repair Facts
Ok, so you’ve messed up. Maybe you lost a job, made an ill-fated relocation to another city, missed a payment or encountered an unanticipated medical expense. It can happen to anyone! Even if you’ve suffered a foreclosure, have had multiple charge-offs or late payments, you can have a better credit rating within a year. There are many ways of improving your credit and the good news is that the last year or two is most important in determining your credit score , so you won’t be mortally wounded from past mistakes forever.
Improving credit scores involves avoiding many things. In the order of importance, they are late payments, high credit card balances, closing credit card accounts and having too many in-store charge cards. Late payments carry 35% of the weight in terms of your credit score, so do not take them lightly, even if it’s just a store charge card, a cell phone bill or a rent payment. Your credit score can drop by as little as 20 points or more than 100 points, depending on how often you are late and how many accounts you’re late on, as well as whether you are 30, 60, 90, or more than 120 days late.
Secondly, your credit usage should be no more than 40% of what is offered to you. If your credit line is $1,000, then you should owe no more than $400, and that goes for all lines of credit you have open. If you have any maxed out cards, then pay them down until you hit the 40% mark! Some people think they should close out their accounts to “do the right thing” or “prevent overspending,” although this will decrease your overall credit offering and will reflect negatively on you.
Instead, work on paying those balances down and once you’re finished, aim to purchase one thing a year on those cards to keep them active, and pay them off right away. Lastly, opening and closing store charge cards just to get that 10-15% initial discount is a signal of irresponsible credit behavior and will not result in high scores for your credit.
While you’re trying to improve your credit rating, there are a few common mistakes people make. First, avoid asking a creditor to “lower your credit limit.” Some people assume that will mean less temptation to spend, when instead they should be exercising discipline, learning to live within their means and working at reducing the percentage of total credit used. Remember, you want to be using no more than 40% of the credit that’s extended to you, so by closing accounts you’ll actually magnify your debt. Secondly, don’t make any late payments, as the first one always hurts worse, sometimes by as much as 100 points. The subsequent string of late fees don’t take off as many points generally, but if you re-establish credit again, the worst thing you can do is to miss a payment. The third mistake is consolidating your accounts, since applying for new credit will take off 5-10 points. Applying for an installment loan will improve credit scores though.
To get a better credit rating, you may want to call in and ask that new, updated information be added. Lenders like to see that you have steady employment, so including your current employer could be an asset. You can also include your date of birth, checking account and current residence. If your credit report is missing accounts you regularly pay on time, then you can send the credit bureaus recent statements and payment history records to prove you’re re-establishing your credit score. You can also use a Chevron credit card to buy gas each month and pay it off in full right away.
Categories: credit repair Tags: credit repair, credit report, credit score, debt, foreclosure, improving credit scores, maxed out
Do it yourself Credit Repair
Free Credit Repair – It’s So Easy
As you are believably considerably aware of, your credit report is probably the most critical element in your financial life. If you are experiencing difficulties due to your credit score, then you are likely questioning about free credit repair. Before you can go in repairing your credit rating, you accept to first understand the importance and the kind of touch on a poor credit score can experience upon your life-time.
Source: ezinearticles.com
Credit Card Debt Relief Non Profit Companies
Non-profit Consumer Credit Counseling organizations are funded and backed by the credit card debt relief non profit companies who you are giving the payments to therefore extend a one debt result in mind. This does create a future conflict of interest, therefore be for certain to realize if any Consumer Credit Counseling organization is collecting fees from both you and your creditors so in turn allows for credit card debt management on both ends. Non-profit credit card debt relief companies help hundreds of thousands of consumers with debt reduction problems that are simply acquiring more steady in today’s time so …
Source: ezinearticles.com
Credit Repair Software and Why it Helps
It is very important to pick the right credit repair software to best accommodate your needs. Credit repair software is not a science, but it is a big time saver.
Source: ezinearticles.com
Emergency Debt Relief Credit Debt Counseling
Have your found yourself in a spot where you experience a stack of bills and no money to pay them? If so, you may want to consider emergency debt relief credit debt counseling. Now you’ll find that in spite of the bad rep that several credit counseling companies have been receiving, on that point are still debt management counseling services that are non profit and that can offer you the emergency help that you require.
Source: ezinearticles.com
What Can a Consolidation Debt Program Do For You?
Are you experiencing debt problems that overwhelm you constantly are looking for anyone who can provide sound advice to help you? These types of services serve you with debt consolidation. Make sure to choose the best consolidation debt program that will help you get out of debt.
Source: ezinearticles.com
Categories: credit repair Tags: credit card debt, credit repair, credit report, credit score, debt problems, free credit repair
Credit Report Myths
The tightening of the credit market, has made high credit scores increasingly important. Your score could determine whether or not you qualify for a home loan.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, your credit report has information that affects whether you can get a loan – and how much you will have to pay to borrow money. You want a copy of your credit report to: make sure the information is accurate, complete, and up-to-date before you apply for a loan for a major purchase like a house or car, buy insurance, or apply for a job.
It also helps you guard against identity theft. Identity thieves may use your information to open a new credit card account in your name. Then, when they don’t pay the bills, the delinquent account is reported on your credit report. Inaccurate information like that could affect your ability to get credit, insurance, or even a job.
There are several myths associated with credit reports. According to Bankrate.com, there are 11 myths that stand out above the rest.
1. Paying my debts will make my credit report instantly pristine
Experts say a credit report is a history of your payments, not a snapshot. Experts say you can’t change the past.
2. Credit counseling always destroys my credit score
Attending a credit counselor’s debt management program is not considered negative in the scoring models.
“We don’t want consumers to consider credit counseling to be detrimental to their FICO scores,” says Craig Watts, public affairs manager at Fair Isaac Corp., the company that developed the FICO score.
Although credit counseling does not by itself influence your credit score, it is apparent on the report that you’ve been through, or are currently in, counseling — and that is something individual lenders may not like. Or they might never know.
3. Canceling credit cards boosts my score
Open accounts spell available, potential debt, so better to close them, runs the legend. But experts agree that most creditors want to see at least two or three pieces of active credit to prove you can manage debt responsibly.
4. Too many inquiries hurt my score
Once upon a time, this statement was true. But get with the times — in this millennium, the credit agencies recognize a shopping mind-set when they see one.
5. Checking my own credit report harms my standing
The reporting agencies distinguish between soft and hard pulls. When Target calls to check before issuing its line of credit, the agencies chalk that up as a hard pull and it counts against your score. Personal requests and credit counselors — if they do it correctly (insist on this as part of your agreement terms) — fall under soft pulls, which do not reflect negatively on the evaluation.
6. Credit scores are locked in for six months
Fair Isaac Corporation’s models are dynamic, meaning that your FICO score changes as soon as data on your credit report change.
7. I don’t need to check my credit report if I pay my bills on time
When the Consumer Federation of America and the National Credit Reporting Association analyzed credit scores in the summer of 2002, they discovered that 78 percent of the files were missing a revolving account in good standing, while 33 percent of files lacked a mortgage account that had never been late. Twenty-nine percent contained conflicting information on how many times the consumer had been 60 days late on payments.
8. All credit reports are the same
Way wrong. These days, most creditors across the country do report their information to all three major agencies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. And, because they are separate companies, the speed in which they update records isn’t necessarily equal.
9. Bad news comes off in seven years
Some of it does. Chapter 13 (reorganization of debt) disappears seven years from the filing date. But if you filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy (exoneration of all debt), the window is 10 years from the filing date.
10. I can always pay someone to fix or repair my credit
Yes, you can clear up erroneous information posted to your account, such as a repossessed car that you didn’t purchase in the first place. But if you paid your Sears bill three months late in 2004, that’s a hard fact.
11. A divorce decree automatically severs joint accounts
Experts say the judge may have rubber-stamped your plans to divide credit card, car and house payments, but that carries absolutely no legal weight with the creditors themselves.
Categories: consumer info Tags: credit counselor, credit report, credit score, debt management program, federal trade commission, FICO, identity theft