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Credit Scores

Should your credit card issuer have to give you free credit scores?

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Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today called on major credit card issuers to provide free scores to their customers on their statements or online. The regulator’s idea is that low scores could tip people off to problems in their credit reports–problems they might not otherwise find, since too few people get their free credit reports each year.

Creditors use a variety of scores to evaluate and monitor their customers–scores that measure everything from the likelihood of default to the likelihood the user will stop using the card. It’s the score that measures the likelihood of default that the regulators want customers to see.

I believe you should be able to see any score that’s used to evaluate you, and that you shouldn’t have to pay for it. Getting scores from your credit card company could be a good start, assuming the companies aren’t allowed to sub in some “FAKO” score that no one actually uses.

The problem comes in the execution. Seeing their scores is likely to make a lot of people upset, and not just the folks with low scores. People with high scores usually want to know why their scores aren’t even higher. Credit card companies may not want to mess with having to explain how scores work or take the heat for a process they don’t control. (Credit scoring formulas are created by other companies, like FICO-creators Fair Isaac, and applied to data held by the credit bureaus.)

We’ll have to stay tuned to see if any major issuers bite. In the meantime, you can get free scores from sites like Credit.com and Credit Karma, although they aren’t the FICO scores most lenders use. For those, you’ll need to go to MyFico.com and pay.

Find a better credit card

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Dear Liz: One of my credit cards offers mediocre rewards — mainly an online store where I can use points to buy products I don’t really need. I would like a card from the same company that offers better rewards, but this is my oldest credit card and I don’t want to hurt my credit score by closing it. Should I just open a new card and use this one sparingly? Can I call the company to seek better rewards without closing the account? Thanks for any help you can offer.

Answer: If you have plenty of other open accounts, don’t be afraid of closing one occasionally. Most credit issuers continue to report the details of closed accounts to the credit bureaus for years, so your good history with this card will continue to contribute positively to your scores even if you close the account.

With that in mind, you can call the issuer and ask for a better deal, which will usually mean opening a new card. You also can shop for new cards at one of the many card comparison sites, such as NerdWallet, Cardratings.com or Creditcards.com.

Get free credit monitoring for a year

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TargetTarget’s offering free credit monitoring as penance for its recent massive database breaches. To get it, navigate to https://creditmonitoring.target.com and fill in your email address and name.

Within a day or two, you should get an activation code that allows you to sign up for one-bureau monitoring at Experian. Now, Experian’s a for-profit company, so it will try to sell you upgrades, such as a peek at “your credit score”–actually a PLUS score that isn’t used by lenders. You don’t have to buy anything or give up a credit card number to get the credit monitoring, however.

You will have to cough up your Social Security number and answer some questions culled from your credit report there so Experian will know you’re really you. As always, make sure the URL starts with an “https” before you give up private personal information.

You always need to be wary of credit monitoring offers. Apparently scamsters pretending to be Target are already targeting its customers, so you want to be sure you navigate to the right sites. Don’t click on links in random emails or give out private information over the phone to anyone who calls.

Another hazard has to do with lawsuits. Some companies offer credit monitoring after a breach, but in the fine print you agree to give up your rights to sue the company that suffered the breach or participate in class action lawsuit settlements.

In this case, the fine print requires you to agree to arbitration if there’s a problem with your credit monitoring service, but there’s no mention of giving up your rights regarding any future Target litigation.

I’m generally not a big fan of paying for credit monitoring, but free on-demand access to your credit information–plus alerts of suspicious activity–is a deal worth getting.

Tuesday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: Ten ways to fix the student loan crisis. Also in the news: Questions to ask before you retire, simple things you can do to boost your credit score, and the resolutions every indebted consumer should make. Health claim form

10 Ways to Fix Student Loans in 2014
Actions Congress can take to help solve the student loan crisis.

7 Questions to Ask if You Plan to Retire this Year
What you need to know before putting in your papers.

What’s the Simplest Thing I Can Do to Boost My Credit Score?
Boosting your score can be surprisingly easy.

The 4 Resolutions Every Indebted Consumer Should Make in 2014
You’ve got work to do.

How to Get Your Insurance Claim Paid
Steps you can take to help speed along your claim.

Explore other options before foreclosure

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Dear Liz: Two years ago we moved to another state. Our old house hasn’t sold in that time, as the housing market there is terrible. We have it listed for $255,000 and owe $242,000. A recent appraisal came back at $190,000 to $205,000 despite the fact that it’s in good condition and only 11 years old. We were thinking we should do a mortgage release on the property to get rid of it as we just can’t keep up the mortgage payments any longer. We didn’t think a short sale would work because there’s been no interest yet on the property. Any suggestions?

Answer: What you’re calling a “mortgage release” is actually a foreclosure, and it would devastate your credit for years to come. That may turn out to be the best of bad options, but explore others first.

Perhaps there’s been no interest in your property because the asking price is too high. Talk to a real estate agent with experience in short sales about what listing price is likely to generate offers. A short sale would hurt your credit scores, although perhaps less severely than a foreclosure if you can persuade the lender not to report the deficiency balance (the difference between what you owe on the mortgage and the sale price). The advantage of a short sale is that you’d spend less time in mortgage lenders’ “penalty box” and may qualify for another loan within two years.

Starting over in your 50s, and other curveballs

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Man Seeking EmploymentLosing a job late in life can be devastating, and rebuilding can be tough. Here’s how writer Teresa Mears puts it:

Americans in their 50s and 60s, who expected to be at the peak of their careers before retirement, are finding themselves playing catch-up. While they may never get back the lives they had before, there are steps they can take to improve their retirement prospects.

Jean Chatzky and I offer advice about those steps in “10 ways to get your retirement plan back on track.”

Job losses can have another side effect, besides derailing your retirement: they also can derail your credit scores. I talked to Kelley Holland for CNBC about why that matters and what you can do about it in “What your poor credit rating is costing you.”

I also discusses debt for a series of interviews with Spectrem’s Millionaire Corner, including “Debt is Not Just a Four-Letter Word,” “What Every Buyer ‘Auto” Know about Car Loans” and “You Don’t Want to Overdose on Student Loan Debt.”

Speaking of student loan debt, there are ways to erase some of your federal education loans—but too many people don’t know what they are. Read more in “5 ways do-gooders can erase student loan debt.”

My other recent education columns for Reuters including “Debunking the myth of college rejection rates,”  “3 ways to fix financial aid form flaws” and “That break from college? Stopping out leads to dropping out.”