You credit score is a number that everyone who is considering you for credit is looking at seriously. In today's credit-based financial life it is vitally necessary for you to completely understand the importance of your credit score.

Consumer Credit News

Credit Checks and Employment: EEOC holds hearing

Employers are increasingly checking job applicants' credit records only add to job seekers' angst. According to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 60 percent of all organizations polled said they conducted background checks on applicants, and 17 percent in the Northeast reported that favorable background check results are the most important factor influencing the final decision of whether to hire someone..... Read more

The credit scores of millions more Americans are sinking

Figures provided by FICO Inc. show that 25.5 percent of consumers — nearly 43.4 million people — now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It's unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use.... Read more

Loan Modification Can Lower Your Credit Score

A Home Loan Modification can help you stop foreclosure and stay in your home. But it could affect your credit score depending on how far behind you are and the kind of mortgage loan modification you’ll be granted.... Read more

Reduced Credit Limit Means Lower FICO Score

In this recession, many consumers find their credit as the credit crunch continue to take its toll. Banks and credit-card companies hit by charge-offs are tightening up their lending standards.... Read more

FICO 08 "Beacon 09" Credit Score Now Available From Equifax

Consumer credit reporting agency Equifax and FICO have introduced a credit risk product for lenders and other businesses. Dubbed Beacon 09, the new Equifax score is based off of Fair Isaac's FICO 08 methodology... Read more

Credit Score Strategies in Recession

As the recession drags on, more people find their all-important credit scores slipping. The growing number of foreclosures and credit card delinquencies are adding to many household’s debt and low credit scores. Star Tribune article offers some suggestions what you can do about it. ... Read more

Credit Line Decrease Lowers Your Credit Score

Recently, many consumers have experienced their credit card company decreased their credit line. Credit card profits are being squeezed by rising defaults and waning spending. As a result, issuers are tightening the screws on consumers... Read more

FICO Expansion Score

The FICO Expansion score is a new credit risk score from Fair Isaac designed specifically to help lenders extend credit to consumers in new markets.

FICO Expansion Score assesses the credit risk of consumers who have minimal or no traditional credit history on file by tapping non-traditional sources of consumer data, such as payment performance on deposit accounts, utility account history, and product purchase payment accounts.. Read more

How Credit Inquiries Affect Your Credit Score

A credit inquiry typically lowers your score by five points or less. Credit inquiries reduce credit scores because lenders believe that multiple inquiries are associated with high risk of default. Read more

VantageScore and FICO Score: A Comparison

With the introduction of the VantageScore in addition to the FICO score, consumers are confused about the credit score range and about the credit scoring in general. Here are the main differences between the two credit scoring systems. The FICO® score rates an individual’s credit reliability on a scale of 300 to 850, while the VantageScore uses a different numerical scale ranging from 501 to 990. Read more

Rapid Rescoring: How to Improve Credit Score Fast

Rapid rescoring is a special service that some lenders to utilize. Through rapid rescoring services, a lender -- on behalf of a borrower in your shoes -- can arrange for items on a credit report to be altered or changed (as appropriate) to accurately reflect their true status. Read more

Person to Person Lending and Credit Score

According to Wall Street Journal, Zopa Ltd., a United Kingdom player in the person-to-person online lending market, is starting operations in the U.S. where it will join a handful of other companies, including Prosper Marketplace Inc.'s Prosper.com, that have popularized the market in recent years. Read more

VantageScore Does Not Include Authorized User Information

In the wake of the credit score boosting schemes using authorized credit card user information, Equifax Inc. emphasized in a prepared statement that VantageScore(sm) and the Equifax Risk Score 3.0 are not - and never have been - impacted by the authorized user manipulation. Authorized user information is excluded in calculating both VantageScore and the Equifax Risk Score 3.0. Read more

More Group Segments In New FICO System

As reported, the FICO credit-scoring system is set to undergo a major overhaul in September. Although Fair Isaac Corp., the Minneapolis company that created the FICO score doesn't give out many details about the changes, the company spokesman said there will be more segments in their scoring model. Read more.

Fair Isaac Fights Back On Misuses of Authorized Credit Card Users

Fair Isaac Corp. announced tha it will adjust its FICO credit rating scoring formula to close loopholes. FICO score will no longer consider certain types of credit card accounts, closing a loophole that allowed strangers to coattail on a cardholder's good credit.

This action is intended to protect lenders and FICO scores from abuse of authorized user credit card accounts by a new kind of credit repair service that sells consumer credit card histories to credit applicants in order to purposefully misrepresent the applicants' own credit history to lenders and other businesses. Read more.

How Credit Renting Works

As credit scores take more important role in many parts of our lives, more ideas are popping up everyday to boost our credit scores. Recently, some borrowers with low credit scores are turning to a fast-growing business on the Internet: “Credit Renting”  It’s like transplanting the credit DNA of people with excellent payment histories into the credit files of people with poor histories

The companies boost the client’s score by arranging for him/her to be added as an authorized user on several credit cards of people with stellar credit who were paid to allow this coattailing. Read more

Is FICO Score's Value Diminishing?

According to a Reuters report, as subprime mortgage defaults continue to rise, some lenders are questioning the value of Fair Isaac's FICO score, which measures a consumer's ability to pay back a loan.

In the midst of an unprecedented U.S. housing boom banks and lenders paid a lot of attention to credit scores above all else, often overlooking the income and assets of homeowners looking to refinance and potential homeowners looking to purchase a piece of property. Many home buyers were able to get a loan with a credit score and a written, unchecked statement of income. Read more.

FICO Credit Score Formula To Change

Fair Isaac Corp. is tweaking the formulas behind the company's widely used credit scoring system, which helps banks determine whether millions of Americans receive loans and mortgages.

Executives say changes to algorithms and databases, which will take place starting in September, will improve the accuracy of the company's popular FICO score—particularly for so-called "subprime" borrowers and for new immigrants, young people and others who have "thin files" and lack credit history. Read more

Insurers Win at US Supreme Court On Credit Score Use

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of two large insurers, limiting the circumstances under which companies must tell customers their credit ratings are affecting the amount they pay.

The justices said the Fair Credit Reporting Act doesn't require insurers to notify every consumer who is offered something short of the lowest premiums when seeking a rate quote or applying for a policy. Read more

Insurance and credit score

If you're shopping for a new homeowners or auto policy, it helps to know how you look to the insurers. A majority of insurance companies use credit scores to determine both eligibility and rating classification.

Many insurance companies link some behaviors and risks to credit scores. Some insurance companies, for example, use credit scores as part of a rating basis for homeowner's and auto insurance premiums. Some insurers only consider the credit score on the initial application for a policy; others pull your score every three years and re-evaluate the risk. . It is estimated that a low credit score could cost you between 10 and 50 percent more in auto and homeowner's insurance premiums.

Removing Erroneous Information from Your Credit Report

One of the most important steps that you will want to take when working at improving your credit score is removing erroneous information from your credit report. Unfortunately, in this day and age, the majority of credit reports actually do contain erroneous negative information. Therefore, by making sure that this erroneous information is corrected and removed from a credit report, you can advance and increase your credit score.

VantageScore: A New Alternative to the FICO Score

In recent times, an alternative system of rating a person‘s credit history has been in development and is now in somewhat limited use. This new system is called VantageScore. The three major credit bureaus have been involved in the development of this new system -- and are likely to make significant use of the news system into the future.

The new system does rely on numerical data to develop a credit rating for a consumer. The scores go from 501 to 990. However, under this new system, the raw numerical is transformed into a letter grade -- precisely like the letter grades used in an academic setting. Consumers, under the VantageScore protocol, will be given a letter grade in regard to their credit histories of A, B, C, D, or F. Read more.

What Is a Good Credit Score?

A good credit score is important to your future borrowing abilities, and could affect whether you get that new car or even insurance or a new job. Yet only around 30% of Americans know their scores, and 78% of our credit scores are said to contain errors. So very few likely even know what a good score is so they can clean up their reports and raise their number. Read more.

Credit cards for people with bad or no credit: Secured credit cards

Credit Scores in Everyday Life

Companies have found a correlation between credit scores and personal responsibility. Employers can even deny you a job if your credit score is low. A good credit score is more critical now than ever before. Your homeowner's insurance, car insurance, mortgage, so many things in life now are based off credit score. Read more