We write a lot of content on this site, the downside to this is that a lot of the information is only usable for a limited time. This unfortunately means that information that is always useful is more difficult to find, I’ve put together this page to give you a quick reference to all of our posts about credit reports & credit scores. I’d recommend bookmarking this page so you can quickly come back to it at any stage.
Other posts in this series:
Contents
Credit Reports
- How To Get Your Free Credit Report
- How To: Add A Statement Of Explanation To Your Credit Report
- Who Can Access My Credit Report?
- How To: Remove Negative Items From Your Credit Report
- Why You Shouldn’t Neccessarily Use AnnualCreditReport.Com
- Does Removing A Negative Item With One Agency Force The Other Two To Remove It Also?
- How Long Do Hard Inquiries Stay On A Credit Report?
- Can you REALLY Hide Manufactured Spend from your Credit Report?
Credit Scores
- Soft Inquiry Vs Hard Inquiry – What’s The Difference?
- What’s The Best & Cheapest Way To Monitor Your Credit?
- How Many FICO Scores Are There?
- FICO Score Vs FAKO Score: What’s The Difference?
- True Or False, FICO Is The Most Commonly Used Credit Score In The United States?
- How Does Being An Authorized User Affect Your Credit?
- myFICO.com Promo Codes
- TransUnion FICO Score Vs Equifax FICO Score Vs Experian FICO Score – What’s The Difference?
- How To Improve Your Credit Score In Six Steps
- Types Of FICO Scores
- How Much Does A FICO Score Cost A Lender?
- Credit.com Review – Scam Or Legit Site For Free Credit Scores?
- How Average Age Of Accounts Is Calculated & Affects Your Credit Score
- When & How Often Does My Free FICO Score Update?
- Mint.com Review: Free Credit Score, Report & Monitoring
- Complete List Of Places To Get Free FICO Scores
- How Does A Charge Card Affect Your Credit?
- Strengthen your Credit with an Installment Loan using the Secured Loan Technique
- Everything You Need To Know About Insurance & Credit Scores
- A Comparison of Free FICO Scores from Banks & CUs
Hi! I was just denied a credit limit increase on one of my US Bank credit cards and in the denial letter they said it was based on my TransUnion Rapid Default Model Version 1 credit score. My score here was in the high 500s, whereas my regular credit score (from various credit card accounts who report your score and also from Credit Karma) is in the low 800s/high 700s. I did a little research online and apparently this credit score is designed to help creditors prevent giving credit to people who might run up big balances and then stop making payments on them. Also, there are some DPs of people calling into reconsideration of their request for a credit limit increase at US Bank and being told they could turn the request into a hard pull and have it looked at by a person. The DPs that went ahead with that were then approved. It seems US Bank may just be using this new score for automated credit limit increases. Anyway I just wanted to share this and ask if it might be worth adding a short blog post about it? Both myfico and reddit have several posts where folks discuss their DPs (and in one someone pointed out that the name of this score spells TURD :)) and here is a press release about the score: https://newsroom.transunion.com/as-financial-institutions-face-greater-rapid-default-fraud-and-credit-risks-transunion-fortifies-its-idvision-with-iovation-suite-of-solutions/ The press release specifically calls out the practice of applying for multiple lines of credit simultaneously. And the DPs people shared make it seem that balances and recent inquiries and new accounts seem to be the most salient things for this score. Though many people, including me also had “too few joint accounts” listed as a reason we were denied. This particular reason seems bizarre to me and even potentially like possible discrimination related to marital or familial status? That was the “top” denial reason in my denial letter. The others were: · Too many recently opened bankcard accounts · Length of time accounts have been established is too short · Not enough available credit · Too many inquiries To be clear I have way bigger total credit limit than I’ll ever need (almost $100K) and my utilization % is very low (under 5% with v small balances on several cards, and many others with 0 balance, with any balances paid off each month and often early).. I opened one credit card fewer than 6 months ago, and opened a handful 1 1/2 years ago. My longest credit card account is 17+ years old, and my average age of credit is 3+ years. I’m curious if I wait a few months & try with zero balance on all cards, whether the score will change, and how high it will need to be for US Bank to approve a credit limit increase. Or, if approval/denial is actually more about income level, debt level, assets. And how much overall credit US Bank has already extended to me (I have a few cards through… Read more »
Has anyone used Credit.com’s new “Extra Credit” product? It looks to be directly competing with MyFICO and other services providing all of your FICO scores.
Wondering if there any articles on how closing out a credit card and / or getting a new credit card affects your credit score, and for how long? I did a search and looked through the index but couldn’t find one.
We have a Citibank AA (American Airlines) credit card and are considering closing that and get a Southwest credit card instead, but I want to make sure I am aware of how doing that might affect our credit.
And actually what if we keep both credit cards instead of closing the Citibank AA one…(I don’t want to do this necessarily but again just want to understand how each of these options affect credit. I realize that keeping both would increase the potential debt so I am thinking it has to affect either the credit score or the ability to get a loan negatively?)
Thanks for the help.
Does anyone know of a good reference on what to do with old debt on a credit record. My fiance has several bad things charge offs, etc from 5 or more years ago and a score of 560ish. Wondering whether to pay stuff off or just leave it alone and let it drop off on its own. It doesn’t add up to more than 2 grand, but don’t want to pay it off if its not needed. Wondering whether to focus on getting new credit and ignore the old stuff or not. Thanks in advance
Chuck or William, have a question for you regarding new credit cards and FICO score. I frequetly sign up for new credit with nice signup bonuses. I’ve always thought that once you get the credit card bonus, it’s not a good idea to close that credit, but rather leave it and not use unless you need to and unless there’s an annual fee. Plus, more credit helps your creditworthiness as in how much credit you use relative to what you have available.
But, I’ve heard conflicting opinions since and wanted to veify this with an expert. Do you think it’s better to keep all the credit that a person has applied for, or is it better to close/cancel those credit cards once the bonus is earned?
Doesn’t make a huge difference either way, keeping accounts open will help your average age of accounts over time and would likely improve your credit utilization as well.
I am trying to get a mortgage loan and used Lexingtonlaw to dispute some of the items on my report.
My mortgage lender said that I need to remove any disputes from the reports before they do a final pull.
Some of the disputed items are still pending but due to the timing I would rather contact the lender and do a pay for delete if they are willing.
What is the quickest way to remove the “dispute” notations from any items?
Would DoC be interested in DP regarding the different scores available from various score providers?
I have the MyFICO Ultimate 3B, and today just out of curiosity I checked my scores at CreditSesame and CreditKarma. They are about 55 points higher than the MyFICO TU score. I’d expect a 10-20% difference, but 55 points?! This doesn’t seem to be the norm from other DP I’ve seen.
If 55 points is more then 10% of your credit score, you have bigger issues.
Thank you for replying Chuck.