How To Keep Your Identity and Credit History Safe
Monday, March 15th, 2010
Who is responsible for protecting your identity and credit history? Only you are responsible for making sure your personal information is safe. The best way to protect your credit is to check your credit regularly through AnnualCreditReport.com. If you discover any errors or mistakes, report the errors immediately so the banks and credit reporting bureaus can help resolve your credit disputes. If you do want to hire a credit monitoring service, make sure you use a service that will help prevent fraud, protect your personal information, and resolve any disputes.
Duration : 0:1:29
Continue reading How To Keep Your Identity and Credit History Safe…
Do you know what kind of credit mistakes are lowering your credit score? Common mistakes may be dragging down your credit score and you may not even know what you’re doing. Keep your credit card balance below 50 percent of your available credit. If you max out your credit cards every month you may be lowering your score. You can also get into more trouble if you run into late payments on your credit cards. Watch this Expert Real Estate Tips video for more common credit mistakes that could be lowering your credit score.
Credit scores, on the scale assigned by FICO, range from 300 to 850. Who has an 850 credit score and what canyou do to get one? Less than 1 percent of the population has a credit score above 800, so it’s very unlikely you will have an 850 credit score. However, if your credit score is above 720, you will probably still receive the best rates. Watch more credit and identity theft videos from Expert Real Estate Tips to learn how to raise your credit score.
If you’re checking your credit report regularly, you should be looking for more than your credit score. You should also check for mistakes on your credit report and make sure all the information is accurate. If you find a mistake on your credit report, you will want to file a dispute with the three credit reporting bureaus. By law, the credit reporting bureaus are required to address your dispute within 30 days. Sometimes the credit reporting agency can come to a quick resolution, but other times, it may take longer to come to an agreement with the lender. Either way, watch your credit report very carefully for any false information and file a dispute immediately.