As I’ve noted in the past, credit utilization has a major effect on your credit score. It should thus come as no surprise that recent moves by credit card issuers to reduce the credit limits of certain customers is negatively influencing credit scores.
According to a recent report in the Seattle Times, approximately 45% of US [...]
Every once in awhile I run across MyFICO discount codes, so I thought I’d start compiling them here in one place. For starters, here are two codes that give you 20-30% off your purchase:
myFICOis8 – 30% discount!
CPPSAVINGS – 20% discount!
As always, they also offer a free 30 day trial on their ScoreWatch service, which gives [...]
Have you ever heard of Credit Karma? If not, you should check them out. They offer free credit score tracking. No, it’s not a real FICO score — for that, you’ll need to try a service like MyFICO ScoreWatch — but it still gives you a sense for where you stand. And like I said [...]
For those of you who are trying to shore up your credit score, here are ten tops for improving your credit score, courtesy of the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions. Most of this is pretty standard stuff, but it’s still worth keeping in mind.
Pay your bills on time
If you missed a payment, get current [...]
If you want to see your Experian credit score, you’d better hurry. Fair Isaac, the company that created the FICO score, will not be allowed to sell credit scores based on Experian’s data beyond February 14th, 2009. In the past, you’ve been able to check your FICO scores based on data from all three credit [...]
For the next two days, you can get 50% off any myFICO products by entering the promo code 50FICOKIT when you sign up. Also keep in mind that most of their offers come with a free trial, which can be cancelled at no cost before the trial runs out. If nothing else, you can use [...]
According to a Federal Reserve survey of senior loan officers at major banks, the majority of banks have been tightening their consumer lending terms. In fact, over 60% of banks report that they’ve been actively lowering credit limits, with just under 40% saying that credit limits have remained unchanged.
While this accords well with the widespread [...]
As of early 2009, two of the three major credit bureaus (Equifax and TransUnion) will be employing a new scoring model. Fair Isaac, creator of the FICO credit score, has tweaked their system in an attempt to reduce the risk of defaults. It’s estimated that 40-50% of borrowers’ scores could move by +/- 20 points.
As [...]
Did you know that banks sometimes perform a hard credit check before allowing you to open an account? While this most often happens when you open an account with an overdraft line of credit, it can happen with plain old checking and savings accounts, as well.
Why should you care?
Because hard credit checks can reduce your [...]
As a followup to my earlier article about credit card issuers reducing credit limits, I wanted to highlight some emerging problems in the credit realm, along with some tips for protecting yourself.
Credit Card Issuers Reducing Limits
As I noted previously, card issuers have started reducing their customers’ limits as credit has become tighter. Here’s how [...]
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