Planning on Cutting Up That Credit Card?
During my morning scan of Twitter, I came across a tweet from personal finance gurus Ken and Daria Dolan:
Cutting up your credit cards? Great! But don’t forget to close the account. Our sample letter makes it easy.
The recession spawned a national trend which saw thousands, if not millions, of American shift from spenders to savers. High charges and fees imposed by credit card companies made the transition all that much easier. But before you pull out the scissors and kiss that plastic goodbye, remember that merely cutting up your card doesn’t mean your account is closed.
Loan Modifications Are Hurting Credit Scores
The latest thorn in the side of President Obama’s loan modification program is that some participating borrowers could see their credit scores plummet:
Banks, including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., report the loan modifications to credit bureaus. The adjustments can lower credit scores because of the way the FICO formula, the most widely used by U.S. lenders, works.
Experian Cuts off Consumer Access to FICO Scores
Why did Experian, one of the “big three” credit bureaus, decide to cut consumers off from accessing their FICO score? While details remain quite thin, the credit bureau decided to do so late last week. The only reason why that I have found so far is what CBS5.com’s Sue Kwon called “a behind-the-scenes battle between Experian and myFico.com.” Consumers may still access their FICO scores through the other two bureaus Equifax and TransUnion.
Experts insist that consumers should continue to pull their credit reports from all three bureaus once a year: Read the rest of this entry »
FICO Expands Availability of Credit Score
Imagine if you could log onto your online banking account and click on a feature that not only tells you your exact credit score for free each month, but explains the attributing factors of why it is so. For an estimated 200,000 members of the Pennsylvania State Employees Credit Union, those new features are now a reality.
The program is an extension of Fair Issac’s, the developers of the FICO credit score (”used to help make billions of credit decisions each year, including more than 75 percent of U.S. mortgage loan originations”), “Scores on Statements” program.
