In a study from Javelin Strategy and Research published in May, more than one million children were victims of identity theft in 2017. Of those, 66% were under the age of eight. Up until now it was next to impossible to freeze a child’s credit file because there was no history for them. Children are … Read more
Opting Out by Mindy Leisure Does “opting out” really help your credit score? For years I have had people tell me their clients opted out and it increased their credit score by 10 or more points. In reality this is a myth. Opting out has no bearing whatsoever on a person’s credit score. What is … Read more
Divorce, in and of itself has no bearing on your credit. However, if you have joint accounts with your ex you could be in for trouble, even if debts are listed in the divorce decree as being the responsibility of your ex spouse. As far as credit is concerned, the divorce decree really has no … Read more
Thanks to a 2015 settlement agreement between the New York Attorney General and the three credit reporting agencies, some important changes are on the way in regards to credit reporting. An additional agreement between the credit reporting agencies and another 31 state attorney generals ensure that the change will be nationwide. The changes are being … Read more
Credit reports can be very confusing to read at times. There is a lot of information to decipher, codes that may not always make sense, etc. There are some basic things to know that may help when you are looking at a credit report. While there are several different scoring models available for each bureau, … Read more
A “Rescore” is the updating of information on a credit report at the bureau level in an expedited manner. It is not credit repair and it is not a manipulation of the credit report. Eventually the changes that are made through a rescore would be reported at the bureau level by the creditor. A rescore … Read more
So you’ve found out you were one of the 143 million people who were possibly compromised by the Equifax breach. What exactly does that mean and what should you do now? What it means is that hackers stole names, addresses, social security numbers and even driver’s license information. In some cases all this information was … Read more
“Synthetic Identity Theft” now makes up 80% of all ID thefts in the country at this time. Never heard of it? A lot of people haven’t. What is it? A thief takes one piece of your true identity (usually a social security number) and then combines it with false information such as a different name, … Read more
You’re going to buy a home and you’ve gone to one of the many resources to pull a copy of your personal credit report, but is it the same as the credit report your lender will see? As far as the content, it probably is; as far as your credit scores, probably not. The scores … Read more
Approximately one-third of the population doesn’t check their credit reports every year. Almost one-fourth have never checked them at all. Not checking your credit report on a periodic basis puts you at a lot of risk. The good news is that checking your credit reports is a very simple thing to do. A government study … Read more