Things to know about your credit score:
1. Credit reports may contain errors. Prior to needing it (home loan, car loan, bank loan) check your credit report.
2. Checking your credit score may not lower it. If you check it, there will be no effect. If a lender checks it for loan approval, it will have a small but negative effect.
3. Higher income does not mean higher credit score. Paying bills on time is what counts.
4. Credit scores may vary with each of the big three reporting bureaus. Equifax, Experian and Transunion are the three to check. Make sure they have similar information and no errors.
5. Debt settlement will not remove debt from your credit report. Late payments, bad information and no pays remain for up to seven years.
6. You must use credit and pay on time to improve a credit score. Cash only purchases do not establish a record of paying bills on time and do not improve or support credit.
7. Cancelling a credit card can lower your credit score. The longer you hold a card, use it periodically and pay it off on time, retaining as little debt as possible is the best way to build and retain credit.
8. Disputes that aren't cleared reflect negatively on your credit. Only dispute inaccurate information and get it removed.
9. Missed payments and late payments can all be reported to the credit bureaus. Be sure to make your payments when they are due.
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If
your personal information gets compromised, a thief will open up
financial accounts in your name. However, they will not pay the bills,
and this will ruin your credit.
Whether bad credit results from the legitimate credit holder’s
irresponsibility or from identity theft, your ability to buy a car, rent
a nice place, purchase a home or even get employment can be severely
stifled.
1. Credit reports aren’t always accurate. Most have a big error or mistake: 80 percent, actually. Regularly check your credit report.
2. Pulling your credit score will lower it. A “soft”
pull is done yourself for personal reasons; it will have zero effect. A
“hard inquiry” is when a lender pulls it up for loan approval. It will
have a negative impact, but small.
3. A higher income = higher credit score. Income is not relevant to credit score; paying bills on time (or not) is what matters.
4. Credit scores and credit reports are the same. The three big credit reports are Equifax, Experian and Transunion. But there are too many various calculations of credit
score to
even list here. What matters is your credit managing skills and making
sure all 3 large credit bureaus have similar information and scores.
5. Debt settlement removes debt from your credit report.
But debt settlement doesn’t fix bad credit. Late payments, bad
information and other smears remain for up to seven years following the
first “infraction” date.
6. Cash-only payments will improve credit score. You can’t build good credit unless you
use credit—and wisely. Get a couple small loans or credit cards and pay them off as you use them.
7. Improve your credit score by closing your credit card accounts.
Closing a card lowers your amount of disposable income: the ability to
pay off other debt. You don’t want to lower “credit utilization” by
closing out a card.
8. Smart management of your various banking accounts will reflect in your credit score. These are not reported to credit bureaus and thus have no impact.
9. Dispute accurate (but negative) information to remove it from your credit report.
You can dispute only mistakes. A valid dispute will result in deletion
of inaccurate information. A dispute of negative, but accurate,
information will achieve nothing.
10. Missed payments that aren’t reported to credit bureaus won’t affect credit score. Any missed or late payment can be reported to a credit bureau.
- See more at: http://activerain.com/blogsview/4305143/10-credit-score-truths-and-myths#sthash.wJ5rJSt1.dpuf
Just for fun, my friend Maureen and I decided to ride the 
It was clean. And as we made our way across town, others did board. We
got off at the downtown station which is next to the convention center
and we realized how much easier it would be to ride the train downtown
to events rather than drive and try to park.
