Stupid!

[FL Knifemaker]

True, you can be refused credit even on the strength of the Banks own mistake.

That's true but I've never had it happen. I've been monitoring my credit for about 5 years now. The only thing I've had to do is remind the credit companies of positive actions on my part. They are quick to ding you and slow to fix or update your score. One is just as bad as the other. I hate the whole credit system. You have to use it, spend money and monitor it in order to build it. Without REALLY good credit, loan rates SUCK. You have to spend money and use the system in order to make it work in your favor. Just earning a good living and being responsible with your money isn't enough.

 

[PSPookie]

That's great but your credit score is lagging behind you!! Spend the ten - fifteen bucks per month to monitor your credit. It's almost impossible to manage it without having up to the minute access to it. It's better to know when you can qualify and what your % will be on a loan before you apply for one. Believe me, been there done that. If you're not on top of your own credit your in trouble. The older you get and the more money you make, the more important it is.

Monthly monitoring is overkill IMO. In fact, too many credit inquiries can hurt your credit rating -- it makes it look like you're applying for credit on a regular basis.

To build good credit quickly, use your credit and promptly pay it off. Put all of the monthly expenses you can on the CC and then pay it all off when the bill comes (make sure you set the funds aside and don't just keep spending.) Your credit score will shoot right up. However, you will be screwed if you eff it up and don't pay your balances.

You should also monitor your credit for accuracy. For me, an annual check has been sufficient.

 

[ModulusFan]

Monthly monitoring is overkill IMO. In fact, too many credit inquiries can hurt your credit rating -- it makes it look like you're applying for credit on a regular basis.

To build good credit quickly, use your credit and promptly pay it off. Put all of the monthly expenses you can on the CC and then pay it all off when the bill comes (make sure you set the funds aside and don't just keep spending.) Your credit score will shoot right up. However, you will be screwed if you eff it up and don't pay your balances.

You should also monitor your credit for accuracy. For me, an annual check has been sufficient.

Really? I monitor mine pretty much daily, or at least DID until the vendor pretty much put the halt on that. UNLIMITED daily pulls? I think not.

Pulling your own report does NOT hurt your score. As a matter of fact, it can inadvertently improve it. Inquiries by yourself are considered "soft" pulls. You are the only one that can see them. Hard inquiries are the ones that hurt, and yes they do affect your score. It turns out that two of the three credit reporting agencies are only able to keep track of so many inquiries....soft and hard combined. After repeated soft pulls pulling your own report, as a result the hard inquiries began to "bump" off of your report, improving your score. This went on for quite some time, but it seems as though transunions credit monitoring service is canceling accounts if they feel you are using their unlimited daily pulls every day in order to bump off your hard pulls.

For the record, everyone should monitor their own reports. You'd be amazed how inaccurate a lot of things are....I had a bunch screwed up, and recently had a frivolous collection agency show up on my report from a creditor I never had ANY business with. Had I not monitored my credit and caught that when it showed up, I likely would have been declined on my new car I just bought, or even worse.....hit with a major subprime rate. I am planning to buy a new house in spring, and am still watching it like a hawk. Oh yeah, I also managed to raise my score 150 points since I got into monitoring it and disputing the inaccurate information. Imagine the difference in price over the life of a 30 year mortgage based on a few inaccurate entries causing you to be rate jacked..........

 

[ModulusFan]

To build good credit quickly, use your credit and promptly pay it off. Put all of the monthly expenses you can on the CC and then pay it all off when the bill comes (make sure you set the funds aside and don't just keep spending.) Your credit score will shoot right up. However, you will be screwed if you eff it up and don't pay your balances.

To address the rest of the post (I got a little windy on the last reply)..........

Creditors (and the fico scoring system) like to see a mixture of both revolving (credit cards - avoid store cards, btw) accounts, and installment (auto, personal loans) on your report. What you said about paying them off is indeed true, to an extent. I find I am best to leave a small amount...10-20 bucks on the card to be sure that the account is reported to the credit reporting agencies. Often if it is zero balance, they don't bother. Utilization (how much you owe vs. available credit) is a LARGE portion of your score. Under 50% is considered good, but there are some brackets in there that rate accordingly. I am pretty sure that anything under 10% is going to score the same as zero balances (speaking from experience, and watching the way the fico score reacts to different balances). I recently put $4k on one of my cards for a down payment on my new car....which was needed until I sold my BMW. I took a decent hit on the points for that amount of utilization, but have already paid them back off to see how they rebound. In the past, when I had high utilization and paid them off, they rebounded higher than they were before the big charges.

The other thing that matters a bunch, is time....and average age of accounts. Every time you add a new account, your score will drop until likely the 6 month mark. It takes time to establish good credit, and a thin file can also get you denials. From my reading/experience.....4 revolving, and at least one installment with a clean history with some age will get you in the 700+ territory which is considered prime (I think 720+ gets you the best rates).

Oh, and a 30/60/90 late WILL kill your score by up to 100 points, and likely line you up with denials for the following year or two. Don't do it!

 

[FL Knifemaker]

Monthly monitoring is overkill IMO. In fact, too many credit inquiries can hurt your credit rating -- it makes it look like you're applying for credit on a regular basis.

To build good credit quickly, use your credit and promptly pay it off. Put all of the monthly expenses you can on the CC and then pay it all off when the bill comes (make sure you set the funds aside and don't just keep spending.) Your credit score will shoot right up. However, you will be screwed if you eff it up and don't pay your balances.

You should also monitor your credit for accuracy. For me, an annual check has been sufficient.

Monitoring credit isn't considered an inquiry. If I checked my credit once per year, it would have taken YEARS to bring it up to the point where it is now. They love people that feel that way I would have never been able to establish my credit line or refied my home. The credit companies must be "PUSHED" every single time to make changes in your favor. If you wait for them to do it, you're screwing yourself. Remeber, they exist to report bad credit first and formost. Reporting and helping people with good credit seems like an afterthought for them