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Equifax

Thursday’s need-to-know money news

September 14, 2017 By Liz Weston

Today’s top story: Equifax messed up – who pays? You do. Also in the news: 5 foolproof ways to build wealth without a lottery ticket, 3 ways to score after iPhone 8 and iPhone X release, and your ‘money personality’ is first step to financial freedom.

Equifax Messed Up — Who Pays? You Do

5 Foolproof Ways to Build Wealth — No Lotto Ticket Needed

3 Ways to Score After iPhone 8, iPhone X Release

Your ‘money personality’ is first step to financial health

Filed Under: Liz's Blog Tagged With: building wealth, Equifax, Equifax breach, iPhone 8, iPhone X, money personality

Wednesday’s need-to-know money news

September 13, 2017 By Liz Weston

Today’s top story: How a public adjuster can help with hurricane insurance claims. Also in the news: How to choose a student credit card, how millennials got a 6-figure start on retirement saving, and Equifax is waiving their credit-freeze fees.

How to Choose a Student Credit Card
Finding the right card for you.

How a Public Adjuster Can Help With Hurricane Insurance Claims
You don’t have to go it alone.

How Millennials Got a 6-Figure Start on Retirement Saving
Already ahead of the game.

Equifax Is Waiving Their Credit-Freeze Fees for 30 Days
How kind.

Filed Under: Liz's Blog Tagged With: Credit Cards, credit freeze, Equifax, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, millennials, public adjuster, retirement savings, student credit card

Tuesday’s need-to-know money news

September 12, 2017 By Liz Weston

Today’s top story: How 3 people conquered credit trouble and bought homes. Also in the news: Top 10 apps for buying the right car at the right time, biting on Whole Foods new prices, and 6 Equifax hack rumors fact-checked.

How 3 People Conquered Credit Trouble and Bought Homes
How to come back from credit trouble.

Top 10 Apps for Buying the Right Car at the Right Price
Get the car you want at the price you want.

Should You Bite On Whole Foods’ New Prices? Maybe Not
Are you really saving?

6 Equifax hack rumors fact-checked
Fact from fiction.

Filed Under: Liz's Blog Tagged With: apps, car buying, credit trouble, Equifax, mortgages, real estate, Whole Foods

Outrage after outrage

September 8, 2017 By Liz Weston

Yesterday Equifax broke the news hackers gained access to the Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information for 143 million Americans (a group that apparently includes me, my husband, our daughter and probably you).

Because that wasn’t enough, today the outrages just continued:

  • The breach was discovered at the end of July. What was Equifax doing in the meantime? Well, its executives sold about $2 million worth of company shares,  The Washington Post reports.
  • The same day the breach was announced, Congress scheduled a hearing on a bill to shield the bureaus from full accountability from their actions.
  • Equifax offered free credit monitoring for a year, but didn’t make clear whether its usual binding arbitration language applied. So were people waiving their right to sue over the breach? Equifax wouldn’t say, until the New York Attorney General demanded and got an answer: the binding arbitration clause applies to the monitoring product, not the breach. Just in case, after signing up I sent this letter using Equifax’s opt out clause to (hopefully) preserve our right to sue.
  • Credit monitoring doesn’t prevent anything; it just notifies you after you’ve been victimized. Equifax is also offering free credit freezes, which prevent others from opening accounts in your name. Well, it was supposed to be free; some journalists reported they were charged $3.
  • Experian and TransUnion aren’t offering free anything. To shut down your credit, you need freezes at all three bureaus. The others are charging $3 to $10 each, plus additional fees if you need to temporarily lift the freeze to apply for credit, a job, insurance, cell phone service, utilities, an apartment, etc. Oh, and freezes won’t help with other types of crime, such as medical and criminal ID theft or blackmail. (The hack is a potential national security threat, according to experts quoted by the New York Times.)
  • Oh, and when victims try to enroll in credit monitoring, Equifax tells them to come back in a few days. Because, apparently, they’re kind of busy.
  • In fact, all three bureaus’ Web sites were having trouble under the deluge of requests. Sites were freezing and offering error messages; people were getting busy signals or being kicked off calls.

There was no way to make this breach better, but clearly there were plenty of ways to make it worse.

 

Filed Under: Liz's Blog Tagged With: Credit, Credit Bureaus, Equifax, Equifax breach

Bureaus fined for credit score confusion

January 3, 2017 By Liz Weston

51w4H0Y7W7L._SX333_BO1,204,203,200_The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today ordered Equifax and TransUnion to pay more than $23 million in restitution and fines for deceiving consumers about the usefulness and actual cost of credit scores they sold to consumers. Regulators said the bureaus also lured customers into expensive subscriptions when people thought they were getting free scores.

The CFPB said the bureaus were selling scores without making it clear that they weren’t the FICO scores lenders typically use in their decisions. TransUnion was selling VantageScores and Equifax sold a proprietary score. (Important to note here that VantageScores are now offered for free by many sites, including my employer NerdWallet.)

Credit scoring can be complex, and people are easily confused about the different types of scores and how they’re used by lenders. For example, many people think they have one credit score, when in fact we have many, and those scores change all the time.

People often don’t understand that the scores they’re seeing aren’t necessarily the ones used by lenders. Most lenders use some version of the FICO credit scoring formula, but FICOs come in many different versions and iterations. There are different generations of FICO scores and formulas tweaked for different industries, such as credit cards or auto loans. Furthermore, the FICOs you get from one major credit bureau will differ from the FICOs you can get from the two other bureaus.
Before VantageScore, the bureaus often sold proprietary scores that were used by few, if any, lenders. That led consumer advocates to label these proprietary scores as “FAKO” scores. VantageScores definitely aren’t FAKOs, since they’re used by 20 of the 25 largest financial institutions. But they may be used behind the scenes–for marketing or testing, rather than for deciding whether you get a loan or the interest rate you’ll get.
A VantageScores can give you a general idea of how lenders might view you as a credit risk. If you’re in the market for a major loan such as a mortgage or auto loan, however, you should consider buying the appropriate FICOs from MyFICO.com to get the clearest idea of where you stand.

Filed Under: Liz's Blog Tagged With: CFPB, Credit Score, Credit Scores, Equifax, FICO, FICO scores, TransUnion

Big changes afoot for credit bureaus and your scores

March 9, 2015 By Liz Weston

check-credit-report-easilyCredit bureaus will have to hold off on reporting delinquent medical bills and supply actual human beings to review disputes under an agreement announced today with New York’s attorney general.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the agreement, to be announced later today, will change how credit bureaus operate nationally. Bureaus will have to wait 180 days before reporting any medical debt on people’s credit reports. When an insurance company pays a medical bill, all references to it will have to be deleted from the individual’s reports.

This is a big deal, since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates about 43 million Americans medical collection accounts on their credit reports. One such collection can devastate an otherwise pristine credit report and cause credit scores to plunge.

Having human beings review disputes is another significant change. Currently, humans stick a code on disputes before they’re sent to lenders, but the process is highly automated. Errors that have been removed from a report can crop up again (and again and again) when the lenders upload their data files to the bureaus. Getting problems fixed can be a frustrating process when you can’t get a human being to intervene.

The changes won’t happen overnight. The bureaus have three and a half years to roll them out.

Filed Under: Liz's Blog Tagged With: CFPB, Credit Bureaus, credit report errors, Credit Scores, Equifax, Experian, FICO scores, New York attorney general, TransUnion

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