Are You Keeping Tabs on Your Personal Credit Rating?
Have you checked your personal credit rating lately? If you are like most people, chances are that the answer is no.
In fact, most people cannot even remember the last time they checked their personal credit rating to see what their credit reports say about them.
You need to know that while basically ignoring your credit score may have been acceptable ten or more years ago, today is a totally different world, and you should know what your credit score is at all times.
In fact, your credit score number should be a number that you know as well as you know your phone number.
Why is that the case? Your credit information is reported to one or more of the three major credit reporting agencies every month.
These agencies probably know more about you than most people remember about themselves over the past ten or more years.
They have information that lists what credit accounts you have open, what your current balance is, how much your minimum payment is, how much of a payment you made last month, and how many times you have made late payments on that account.
It also contains information about who your employer is and how much you make.
To give you an example of how important this information is to other industries, take a look at one of the things that many car insurance companies are doing these days, and more of them are joining this bandwagon regularly.
When they are quoting you a car insurance rate, they will get a copy of your credit report and base their rate quote on your credit rating.
If you have a poor or a bad credit rating, your car insurance is going to cost more.
Although some consumer advocacy groups are fighting this, the car insurance companies claim to have hard evidence that supports their stand based on historical data that allegedly shows that people with a bad credit score make more claims on their car insurance.
The key point to note is that there are three major credit bureaus, and not one of them has a totally "global" view of you and your credit.
Some of the information is at this one, some is at that one, and some is at yet the third one.
The problem with this is that each of the bureaus has a "skewed" view of your credit, but since that is all they know about you, they calculate your credit score based on what they do know.
If you have a lot of good accounts that they don't know about, your credit rating with them is going to look pretty bad because they don't know about your good accounts that you have kept in good standing.
Make it a point, at least annually or more often, to get copies of your credit report from each agency and then go through and make sure the information is accurate.
Credit bureaus are notorious for having errors in credit reports, and your credit rating is going to suffer if that is the case with you.
It is both your right and your duty to make sure the data they have about you is accurate so that your credit rating can be calculated as high as it deserves to be.
In fact, most people cannot even remember the last time they checked their personal credit rating to see what their credit reports say about them.
You need to know that while basically ignoring your credit score may have been acceptable ten or more years ago, today is a totally different world, and you should know what your credit score is at all times.
In fact, your credit score number should be a number that you know as well as you know your phone number.
Why is that the case? Your credit information is reported to one or more of the three major credit reporting agencies every month.
These agencies probably know more about you than most people remember about themselves over the past ten or more years.
They have information that lists what credit accounts you have open, what your current balance is, how much your minimum payment is, how much of a payment you made last month, and how many times you have made late payments on that account.
It also contains information about who your employer is and how much you make.
To give you an example of how important this information is to other industries, take a look at one of the things that many car insurance companies are doing these days, and more of them are joining this bandwagon regularly.
When they are quoting you a car insurance rate, they will get a copy of your credit report and base their rate quote on your credit rating.
If you have a poor or a bad credit rating, your car insurance is going to cost more.
Although some consumer advocacy groups are fighting this, the car insurance companies claim to have hard evidence that supports their stand based on historical data that allegedly shows that people with a bad credit score make more claims on their car insurance.
The key point to note is that there are three major credit bureaus, and not one of them has a totally "global" view of you and your credit.
Some of the information is at this one, some is at that one, and some is at yet the third one.
The problem with this is that each of the bureaus has a "skewed" view of your credit, but since that is all they know about you, they calculate your credit score based on what they do know.
If you have a lot of good accounts that they don't know about, your credit rating with them is going to look pretty bad because they don't know about your good accounts that you have kept in good standing.
Make it a point, at least annually or more often, to get copies of your credit report from each agency and then go through and make sure the information is accurate.
Credit bureaus are notorious for having errors in credit reports, and your credit rating is going to suffer if that is the case with you.
It is both your right and your duty to make sure the data they have about you is accurate so that your credit rating can be calculated as high as it deserves to be.
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