Thursday, August 24, 2006

Exceptional Ways To Improve Your Credit Score

! That's the thing perhaps most Americans care about these days.It is easy to ruin your credit score -but-building or increasing credit score is not so easy. Here some tips to increase your score easy to follow but exceptional.

First tip:
Dont spend hundreds of on credit repair services that
don’t work.
Write letters to the collection agencies requesting
proof that the bad credit accounts were your. 89% of the time they have
no proof that the bad accounts belonged to you. So you'll be able
to get them deleted from your credit file.

Second tip: Get a copy of your

Obtaining a copy of your credit report is a good idea because if there is something on your report that is incorrect, you will raise credit score once it is removed. Make sure you contact the bureau immediately to remove any incorrect information.

Your credit report should come from the three major bureaus: Experian, Trans Union and Equifax. It's important to know that each service will give you a different credit score.

Third tip:
Open new accounts with high credit limits and keep the
balances low.

If you keep your available credit limits high and
only use 10% to 30% of the credit you have available, your
credit score will improve dramatically.

Fourth tip: Pay Your Bills On Time

Your payment history makes up 35% of your total credit score. Your recent payment history will carry much more weight than what happened five years ago.

Missing just one months payment on anything can knock 50 to 100 points off of your credit score.

Paying your bills on time is a single best way to start rebuilding your credit rating and raise credit score for you.

Fifth tip: Pay Down Your Debt

Your credit card issuer reports your outstanding balance once a month to the credit bureaus. It doesn't matter whether you pay off that balance a few days later or whether you carry it from month to month.

Most people don’t realize that credit bureaus don’t distinguish between those who carry a balance on their cards and those who don’t. So by charging less you can raise credit score even if you pay off your credit cards every month.

Lenders also like to see a lot of of room between the amount of debt on your credit cards and your total credit limits. So the more debt you pay off, the wider that gap and the better your credit score.

Tip no 6: Next, add accounts with years of perfect payment history to
your credit file. This step will take your credit score from 647 to 762.

While you can certainly add seasoned accounts to your credit
file for free, there are companies that claim they can do it for
a fee.

The problem is, they charge between $2,000 and $2,500 per
account. If you want a 700+ credit score you’ll need 3 to 4 of
these accounts. That equates to a cost of $6,000 to $10,000.

Tip no 7: Don’t Close Old Accounts

In the past people were told to close old accounts they weren’t using. But with today's current scoring methods that could actually hurt your credit score.

Closing old or paid off credit accounts lowers the total credit available to you and makes any balances you have appear larger in credit score calculations. Closing your oldest accounts can actually shorten the length of your credit history and to a lender it makes you less credit worthy.

If you are trying to minimize identity theft and it's worth the peace of mind for you to close your old or paid off accounts, the good news is it will only lower you score a minimal amount. But just by keeping those old accounts open you can raise credit score for you.

Tip no 8: Stay Out Of Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is the single worst thing that will destroy your credit score. will lower your credit score by 200 points or more and is very difficult to come back from.

Once your credit score falls below 620, any loan you get will be far more expensive. A bankruptcy on your credit record is reported for up to 10 years.

Your credit score will go up if you follow these steps.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Credit Reporting Agency (CRAs)

The CRAs are required by law to protect your rights while you are in the process of clearing credit.This process is tedious and frustrating . They must remove undocumented information on your report.

A negative credit report hinders your quest for financing a house. You will have to do a lot of tedious work to clear up any mistakes in your credit report.

Once you receive your reports, you will be given a phone number to discuss your report with a real person. Your gentle manners and pleasant conversations with the credit bureau employees will motivate them to help you more than angry words. Remember, these people are just doing their job and they get yelled at day after day by frustrated consumers.

Complete the dispute form provided with your credit report if something wrong in your credit report and write a letter for all discrepancies to both the creditor and the credit bureaus listing the item. Identify each credit report error by their corresponding account number and state why it's wrong. Include a photocopy of your credit report with the errors circled with your dispute form and letters. Send copies of your supporting documents.
Keep a copy of these documents with you for future reference.
This is important because in extreme cases they are required when some disputes are setteled with the help of Attorney.

Credit bureaus must investigate disputes within 30 days of receiving your complaints. Any item that is not verified as accurate by a creditor is supposed to be removed. However, the supposed creditors do not have to provide any supporting documentation. All they have to do is state that the account is reported accurately.

For this reason, after receiving your updated credit reports, check to see what actions were taken.
What the Credit reporting agency do with your information.They sell it to data marketing companies.It is usually done when you apply for a mortgage loan .

These data marketing companies then resell the information to lenders who are interested in trying to entice you to use their lending services. The information the data marketing companies provide is valuable, because it tells lenders everything about your creditworthiness before lenders pitch you their offers.

Just what other sort of information is being sold?

Mortgage Inquiry Data also sells:

credit scores

open mortgage balances

monthly payments

loan-to-value rations

revolving credit card balances

personal credit information besides just marketing application information.

Of the three major Credit reporting Agencies, Equifax and Experian have publicly confirmed that they sell trigger lists within twenty-four hours. If you are against it in your case

then you can personally express your disapproval by contacting the Federal Trade Commission.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Chapter 11 bankruptcy can be called reorganisation bankruptcy because in this case a person may be allowed to propose a plan of reorganization or repayment so that they can continue with his business while paying for his debt.

It is less severe than chapter 7 bankruptcy or chapter 13 bankruptcy because --

--It has not any debt limitation like chapter 13 bankruptcy.

--A repayment schedule is negotiated with creditors as an alternative to asset liquidation.

--Signing in for a bankruptcy , one should get ready for deliberate explanation to a judge or trustee how he get himself into such a situation.The person in one way or another might lose any credit card he has unless he has already paid for it. After declaring economic failure, one can have a hard time re-applying for mortgages, loans, credit cards, life insurance and even some job, so one should get ready to rebuild his credit.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a type of bankruptcy, which is less severe and allows the person in debt to remain in possession of his assets.The creditor company can cancel all the debts made by the person in order for them to make a new start.

This is neither harsh compared to other forms nor methods which will require the debtor to sell all his properties and to repay the credit at any stake. In this process, the debtor is permitted to postpone all payments so that he or she can put himself back to rearrange his or her finances, hoping that the person can recover and build up his business once again.

As soon as the company enters to the conditions of Chapter 11, they can still operate on a day-to-day basis.

Companies affected with this type of condition can still trade stocks.However, it will be unnecessary to still buy the stocks of these companies because more often than not the company will only end up in financial loss.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy is almost certainly the most flexible of all the chapters, and the same time the hardest to generalize. Its flexibility makes it generally more expensive to the debtor.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Best Credit Card After Bankruptcy

Best credit card after bankruptcy.
It is easy to find out.I am not affiliate to any card issuer.So i wont distinguish any card as the best.But i can point out some criterias to find out the best credit card after bankruptcy.

First thing is low application fee and zero or low processing fee.
I found some secured credit cards that have no application fees and one that had a-- are you ready for this?.....90$- $120 application fee! Sadly, many people have paid it!

I alaways advice to go for a secured credit card for the people with bankruptcy.

The second thing is low interest rate.

If you are in bankruptcy then you are a high risk customer.Some banks or lending companies will give you credit or credit card but at an increased rate.
I ran across one with an interest rate of 23.99% and another with an interest rate of only 9.25%.
So find out one with the lowest rate.

By satyajit das--Blogger of this blog--B.Tech in computer Sc. and MBA (Finance).I am a freelauncher credit consultant dealing with some credit lending companies.

I think now you can find out the
best credit card after bankruptcy yourself.