credit report: FICO primer VII - 05/17/07 08:06 AM
This is the seventh part on how FICO works. To be able to fully follow the flow of discussion it would be to your benefit to first read FICO primers I, II, III, IV, V and VI. This is the last segment of the FICO tutorial. Long journey, wasn't it.
If you're denied credit, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, or ECOA, mandates that you can within 30 days get the reasons why. You can also ask for a free credit report from the credit reporting agencies within 60 days.
As mentioned before, it's important to check your credit report annually for any errors. Better yet, check it … (0 comments)

credit report: FICO primer II - 05/05/07 08:49 AM
This is the second part on how FICO works. To be able to fully follow the flow of this discussion, it would be to your benefit to first read FICO primer I.
There are three credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, that feed data to FICO. How do these companies get their information about you? It's the financial institutions who have given you credit in the past, for instance a mortgage lender or a student loan administrator, who send the accumulated information over regarding the management of your obligation.
The report is rather detailed. It itemizes what type of credit was used, your payment history, when the account … (0 comments)

credit report: FICO score boost. - 04/27/07 05:30 AM
Mortgage lenders today are setting higher loan qualification standards for borrowers with weak credit files. Since they're facing mounting defaults in the subprime segment, they have to. Now there's another issue to contend with. When they study a credit report, the one compiled by FICO, are they really looking at the applicant's true financial background, or has it been artificially boosted by someone else's excellent credit file?
This is what's happening. Companies are turning up on the Internet that offer to marry a stellar credit file with a file that is so-so, or worse. In essence, the high-quality information is shared and that'll help … (8 comments)