Errors on a credit report can raise your interest rates, get you denied for loans, or cost you a job or apartment. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) gives you clear rights to see your reports, dispute inaccuracies with the […]
Free weekly credit reports are now a permanent feature in the U.S., and using them well is one of the simplest, zero-cost ways to protect your credit. The three nationwide bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — supply your reports
Your credit report is a living file of your credit history: who you are, which accounts you’ve opened, how you’ve paid them, and who’s recently checked your credit. Reading it carefully helps you catch errors, spot identity-theft red flags, and
Every time someone checks your credit, a record called an inquiry appears on your credit report. Some of these checks are “soft” and don’t affect your credit score, while others are “hard” and can temporarily lower it a bit. The
Your credit utilization ratio is the share of your available revolving credit you’re using right now. Lenders and scoring models watch it closely because it signals near-term risk: maxed-out cards are more likely to default than cards with plenty of
When lenders pull your credit, the first question they ask — explicitly or implicitly — is: “Do you pay as agreed?” That’s why payment history is the single most important driver of mainstream credit scores. In FICO® models, it accounts
If you have checked your credit in two different places and seen two different numbers, you have probably met the two dominant scoring families: FICO and VantageScore. Both use your credit reports to predict risk on a 300–850 scale, but
Credit is simply trust made measurable. Lenders look at your past borrowing and repayment behavior to estimate the risk of lending to you today. That evidence lives in your credit reports (files maintained by Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) and is
Raising a credit score quickly is less about tricks and more about hitting the biggest levers that scoring models actually weigh. On the dominant FICO® 300–850 scale, the two heaviest components are payment history (~35%) and amounts owed/credit utilization (~30%),
A “good” credit score is not a guess; it is defined by the scoring models lenders actually rely on. On the dominant FICO® scale (300–850), scores of 670–739 are considered “Good,” 740–799 “Very Good,” and 800–850 “Exceptional.” These tiers matter
