You can buy them from 2 out of the 3 credit reporting agencies. (Experian, Trans union and Equifax [sp]) but not the third, I forget which one you can't buy as a consumer.
I used a mortgage company to get mine. They can get all 3.
In obtaining your Credit Score, does that count against you on your credit, like if someone checks my credit ??
And why does that count against me if someone checks it ??
Yes, it costs you 12-15 points off your FICO score to have an inquiry.
So it's better to learn your FICO score and then ask the credit manager or whom ever you are trying to get credit from what score they require to do the deal first.
Yes, it costs you 12-15 points off your FICO score to have an inquiry.
So it's better to learn your FICO score and then ask the credit manager or whom ever you are trying to get credit from what score they require to do the deal first.
So, will it cost me 12-15 points to find out my score, or is it only if "XYZ company" inquires for credit ??
It will not cost you in your score find out your score through myfico. I recommend you do this once per year and make sure you get all three. You can get all three for a one time fee. You get access to the report for about a month to review it. With the reports comes information as to how to improve your score. Some of the ways are not always obvious. I do this once per year since I have had false information on them. It was quite an education as to how some of the information was hurting my score. I had closed accts. for over 20 years still showing up and accts. I had never opened showing up. The different agencies may or may not have the same score and/or information. You are in the right website to do this, www.myFICO.com. I use the FICO standard and get all three. You can also get on the watch programs which provides a sense of security.
Your score is very important, and you don't want to find out you have a problem when you are trying to buy a house or a car. It can take a couple of months to clean up the situation.
Checking your own credit is called a "soft" inquiry and it doesn't hurt your score. "Hard" inquiries are when a financial institution checks your credit to see if you qualify for a car loan, credit card, etc.
You can get all three credit reports for free in certain western states, but you have to pay extra for the scores, but its probably still cheaper. Your region will begin offering free reports on March 1st. You can do it all online, check out this link.
Hits on your credit report CAN screw up your score.
In 6 months I bought:
3 cars
house
all the utilities for the house (gas, water, cable, etc)
2 4wheelers
appliances (refrig, washer/dryer, etc)
I had perfect near perfect credit before and still do, however, my FICO score went WAY down!! 4 wheelers, one of the cars, and all the appliances are paid off now, so I am sure it is better. When I bought the 3rd car, it freaked me out when the Finanace guy told me what my FICO score was. I thought someone had done an ID theft with my accounts. After some research, I found out what it was and was pretty surprised.
You can check your own credit reports or FICO score 100 times a day and it will not effect your reports or your FICO score. I check mine regularly (and find inaccurate info all the time). When a vendor who subscribes to a reporting company runs your report, it counts as an inquiry and multiple inquiries can begin to degrade your FICO score (now its between 300 & 850). However, say you are going for a mortgage.... beginning two years ago if you receive 5 GFE´s from 5 different lenders (for a mort or an auto) within a 14 day period, it only counts against your FICO score as 1 inquiry because they are all classified within the same industry.
The scores themselves can be deceiving. The FICO score is not directly related to the 3 major reporting companies; Experian; TransUnion; Equifax. It is simply a formula that uses the underlying data provided from each credit reporting company to derive a result. Experian has something they market as a PLUS Score and it means nothing because lenders do not care what your PLUS Score is and I believe the others also have some type of score but they mean little unless your lender decides to base a lending decision on that particular score.
Going for a mortgage? Typically, a lender will use a mid-score which is simply the middle of your 3 FICO scores calc´d from the data returned from the above 3 main reporting companies. Going for a credit card? BOA (for instance) only subscribes to Experian and they do not use a FICO score on credit cards.... they use some internally derived score and it will only be based on your Experian report. Citibank only uses TransUnion... it's all insane. No one thinks anymore... everyone wants some magic calc from some report to do the thinking for them.
Buy a 3 for 1 report, review all three and get them in-line. I subscribe to creditexpert.com and it tells me whenever anything happens on any one of the 3 reports. MyFICO is great for just that, your FICO score and I believe it will report a score for you based on the data from all 3 reporting companies (in other words you´ll get 3 FICO scores). This is the same service most lenders subscribe to.
The entire thing is INSANE! But having good credit is valuable, blah blah blah.....
ive probably looked at 5,000 peoples credit reports, the highest ive seen on equifax auto enhanced (puts more weight to car loans) is a 881, they were old as dirt. the lowest ive seen is a 360 although it was one of one a few 300s id ever seen. usually people with rotten credit start out that way therefore end up with a credit report that says no beacon available, the 360 had about 10 pages of beat credit. inquires dont affect a score nearly as much as you think jeff
ive probably looked at 5,000 peoples credit reports, the highest ive seen on equifax auto enhanced (puts more weight to car loans) is a 881, they were old as dirt. the lowest ive seen is a 360 although it was one of one a few 300s id ever seen. usually people with rotten credit start out that way therefore end up with a credit report that says no beacon available, the 360 had about 10 pages of beat credit. inquires dont affect a score nearly as much as you think jeff
Good info. How about the other two reporting agencies?
