How To Fix Your Credit Score

New York Times:

So what can these people do to repair their credit?

The simple answer is to focus on the information that is used to generate the all-powerful FICO score -- the measure used most frequently by traditional lenders to determine creditworthiness.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Jacob Hamilton]

11:20 PM on 03/28/2011

It is unfortunate that your credit is so vital to your money when most do not even know how it is calculated or how it works. Your credit score can save or cost you ten of thousands of dollars over your lifetime. Fotuneately, there are companies that will guide you through the process of raising your credit score. Check out this site, these guys will help: www.top-5-credit-repair.com.

[talos72]

02:58 AM on 02/22/2011

We could blame consumers running up debt all we want, but I think it's time for consumer advocacy groups to take a hard look at the scam that is the FICO score: imagine, people's lives has become dependent on a number generated by a few companies through proprietary algorithms. Now FICO has become gospel. It's fine and dandy to worry about your credit and debt, but I question the entire credit rating racket.

[loki]

05:41 AM on 02/21/2011

Credit, was once a very useful and good tool to help those in need buy a home or other expensive purchases that they normally could not afford. But then the Ivy Greed capitalist saw that with a little marketing ( brain washing) to make people believe that no matter what, they could live the good life and buy anything their hearts decided if they only used credit, then made it easy to get, and impossible to understand. They knew that they could make trillions if they could only make the people think credit was like free gold from the heavens. They did, and we all fell in line like children at a candy store with free samples.

[edejan]

03:19 AM on 02/21/2011

Best way to deal with the whole credit rating/credit card system is to cut up the cardsTODAY, spend the next several years paying them down as soon as you can and then drop out of the credit system. It's all a scam and a trap. Pay cash for your goods, forget buying a house any time in the near future...renting is more fiscally doable. Don't let the banking systems control you to the extent possible. The banks have taken our earning and hold them hostage from us with fees and regulations. It's your money, not the bank's.

[loki]

05:34 AM on 02/21/2011

My dad did that years ago and it came back to haunt him. Since 1972 he paid cash for everything. Even homes. He figured he could pay himself back with interest just as easy as he could pay the bank back. I envy his willpower to actually do it. It must have been hard. But he did it. Then, in the 90's he started to find out just how damaging it was for him. So many companies use credit ratings to base fees and charges off of its incredible. From insurance to the local utilities and phone companies all base your customer viability off of your credit scores. If your score is low or no existent, they want higher rates and more money up front to offset perceived risk. It was insane so my dad finally applied for a credit card and would buy his gas and groceries on it and pay it off every month just to keep from getting screw ed by the ivy greed capitalist. What a sad country we have become. Just so companies can rape ( not rake)us over the coals a little more.

[turrt173]

08:48 PM on 02/20/2011

You gotta love america, the land of selective amnesia....

charge it, charge it
"i don't care about all the details, just tell me my payment on my new car"

I read of the true unemployment numbers are at 20ish %
But when you drive by all the local steak/italian restaurants on a wkend they are packed to the gills. Think of all the cash that is being spent ;)

rinse ring repeat

[spytheweb]

08:20 PM on 02/20/2011

Who invented this? I have never looked at my score and never will. If you have bad credit that means that you can't borrow against your future. Pay cash. The money usury system is destroying the country. Having interest attached to everything is stealing your wealth. When i was young i never understood how someone could buy a house and over 30 years pay almost double for it? That still seems crazy. Even now when someone has made 20 or 25 years worth of payments and has their homes foreclosed on, the bank takes it back and now it starts all over again, is insane.

Why can't we go back to using colonial script? Money without interest?

"Ben Franklin:
During a visit to Britain in 1763, The Bank of England asked Benjamin Franklin how he would account for the new found prosperity in the colonies. Franklin replied.

"That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers.

In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one."

"In Response the world's most powerful independent bank used its influence on the British parliament to press for the passing of the Currency Act of 1764."

""The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War."
                                                                                                               -Ben Franklin

[loki]

05:36 AM on 02/21/2011

since dropping the gold standard an going on with fiat currency, there is no more real currency/ money. So credit is just as valid as the make believe paper we call money.

[stargazer13]

04:43 PM on 02/20/2011

Why Is IT ??

That bank C.E.O.,s labor is more valuable then your,s mine ,s every one,s for that matter !

I mean we all labor in our day to day lives

you would think if any labor was paid more it would be physical heavy lifting that got paid more in dollars !!

[vippy]

05:39 AM on 02/21/2011

and people in here actually defend the rich, saying they deserve it, that it gives them an incentive to become like it LOL, etc.

[FrogLips]

12:34 PM on 02/20/2011

Don't worry about it. As Dave Ramsey advises - don't borrow money, therefore, you don't need credit scores. Pay cash for everything. If you can't, don't buy it because you can't afford it.

[isee61]

01:57 PM on 02/20/2011

FrogLips I'm with you.

The FICO score is the " I love debt" score. If you same money and buy what you want, you don't need a FICO score.

I'm a firm believer in the Dave Ramsey plan. My family is debt free because of him and the work we did to clean up our finances.

[BuckyJamesDio]

11:40 AM on 02/21/2011

How does that apply to large items like cars and houses though?

[isee61]

03:27 PM on 02/21/2011

I'm glad you asked. On cars, Dave always say buy what you can afford. Start off with a 2-3 k car, save your money and move up to the car that you want, all the while not going into debt while your vehicle goes down in value.

As far as a house, Dave says, save the 20% for your down payment and have your broker do an old fashion underwriting contract, the banks will take that every time. Borrowing for a home is okay with Dave Ramsey.

Anything else is a save money and you will appreciate it so much more than bogging yourself in debt.

[cats530]

10:48 AM on 02/20/2011

Time to BOYCOTT these banks:

"What if you go to use your debit card but find you have a $100 spending limit — even if you have more money in your account? Right now, the idea is a bargaining chip being used by some of the nation's biggest banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup.
That's enough. You banksters have threatened the people, you screw up mortgage servicing, and you whine and complain to get bailouts, threatening financial Armageddon. Now you want to play games with people accessing their own money at the store?"

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2421748

[isee61]

02:00 PM on 02/20/2011

cats530

I boycotted the banks over 25 years ago. I bank at Credit Unions and local banks that their head quarters are in town.

the Chases, B of A and others are fleecing America and to me that is not good business.

[ARTIST50]

08:21 PM on 02/20/2011

I haven't used a bank in almost 20 years. I have the greatest credit union and I don't pay for checks and I pay no fees. I don't know why anyone uses them.

[moose and squirrel]

10:31 AM on 02/20/2011

millions lost their jobs and their credit with the recession.  now, to fix their credit they need a job. but to get a job you need credit.  what is wrong with this picture?

[stargazer13]

04:35 PM on 02/20/2011

merry go round of chaos if ya ask me !!

My credit score was hit so bad evidently I am now for the first time at fifty years of age not deemed worthy to live in doors by property management companies !!

[Squiggie]

06:36 AM on 02/20/2011

This entire credit issue is truly a sign of our socioeconomic disease.
We have been reduced to serfs who "owe our souls to the Company Store"...
Time to jump off the tread-mill!

[matsrg]

05:12 AM on 02/20/2011

I Will give you some advice here http://di-trader.se

[laconic93]

04:16 AM on 02/20/2011

The problem is the banks feed people since birth that you need credit and if your credit is bad your a bad person. They further enforce this bye requiring you to have good credit to do any of the following.
Rent or buy a house, rent or buy a car, get a job, get a loan for anything else. Face it the rich dont need credit cauese they rob all the money from the middle class.
Here is what you do if you have bad credit. Any creditor has to prove that they own the debt that they report becuase of the fair credit reporting act, they have to prove within 30 days that they are the owner of the debt or remove it from your credit file. Same thing as demand the note you see with the mortgages. Send in your disputes around christmas to the orginal debtor, because most of their staff are on vaction they probally wont be able to make the 30 day time limit. The older the debt the better this trick works. When they dont provide proof they have to remove it from your credit file. Try it, there are also ways of creating a new credit file, one example is to start your own business and get credit through your corporation. As the supreme court says there a person too.

[Chazmania]

02:14 AM on 02/20/2011

When Americans traded their self respect for a credit score this country took a nose dive....
'the banking mafias have been very effective on getting everyone to be addicted to credit and like all junkies you would sell your mom for a fix...
Americans have been systematically brain washed to view even human life through the prism of a wallet...

[aaaarrrggg]

10:18 AM on 02/20/2011

Ah, the Bush years, when everyone was converted from a 'citizen' to a 'consumer'.

[stargazer13]

04:39 PM on 02/20/2011

you know what it is that I can not for get about those years !!

Just Go Shopping so the terrorist don,t win !! :)

[stargazer13]

04:37 PM on 02/20/2011

I feel ya !

[Chazmania]

02:08 AM on 02/20/2011

I have decided that ALL the too big to fail BANKS are mafia loan sharks.. I refuse to ever do any business with them again...Investors yes..but private investors only working with personal relationships..the major banks are a haven of criminals..DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH CRIMINALS....