In Less Than 30 Days.
"What can you do to increase that set of three numbers on your credit report that can be so important with your financing?"
I came across this question as I was surfing discussion groups the other day. Check out my answer:
Dear Friend,
Here are 3 steps I used to take my credit score from 592 (horrible credit) to 762 (perfect credit) almost overnight. If you’re interested in improving your credit rating quickly, you’ll find this story helpful:
In 1995 I made a decision that would ruin my perfect credit history. I quit my salary job to become an insurance salesman. The job paid commission only. Within a few months I lost everything - house, car, credit rating and my self respect.
By the end of 1996 I was living with my mom, all my credit accounts were severely past due, and I was paying 22% interest on a broke-down green Geo Storm...I was a real loser.
Then, in 1997, I became a banker. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would turn out to be the break I needed to eliminate my credit problems forever.
During my seven years as a banker, I came across several legal and highly effective ways to improve my credit rating. As a result, I was able to increase my credit scores by an average of 170 points.
Here’s what I did:
Step #1: After spending hundreds of dollars on credit repair services that didn’t work, I found out how to get negative accounts removed on my own.
Basically, I wrote letters to the collection agencies requesting proof that the accounts were mine. 89% of the time they had no proof that the bad accounts belonged to me. So I was able to get them deleted from my credit file.
Step #2: I opened new accounts with high credit limits and kept the balances low.
I discovered that if you keep your available credit limits high and only use 10% to 30% of the credit you have available, your credit score will improve dramatically.
Step #3: Next, I added accounts with years of perfect payment history to my credit file. This step took my credit score from 647 to 762.
While you can certainly add seasoned accounts to your credit file for free, there are companies that claim they can do it for a fee.
The problem is, they charge between $2,000 and $2,500 per account. If you want a 700+ credit score you’ll need 3 to 4 of these accounts. That equates to a cost of $6,000 to $10,000.
(You can conduct a search on your favorite search engine for companies that offer this service.)
While there are several highly effective steps you can take to increase your credit scores by as much as 200 points, these are the main ones...And here’s the good news: Each step can be completed in less than 30 days.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Identity Theft Victims
Identity theft statistics are shocking. And we are told that it will only become worse, before it gets any better. Are you likely to be affected?
According to recent studies, up to 7,000,000 people become identity theft victims each year, in the United States alone. That’s over 19,000 cases a day, or 799 cases an hour. Whichever way you look at it, these are shocking figures. And with more and more people using the Internet, online banking, and other hi-tech services, things aren’t likely to improve any time soon.
In fact, another research, a survey conducted on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission recently, tells us that the situation is even worse. According to the FTC survey report, 4.6% of the US population were identity fraud victims last year - that’s 10 million people.
According to the FTC figures, if someone fraudulently opens a new credit card or another loan account under your name, on average you can expect the dollar amount to go to about $10,200. That’s just an average amount.
To clean up your name, and your credit rating, you will need to deal with this experience. You can expect to spend between $500 and $1,200 of your own hard-earned money cleaning up the mess. You can also expect to invest between 30 and 60 hours of your time.
The above figures are just cold statistics. They say nothing about the emotional trauma, through which you are likely to go when it happens to you. It’s all very well to read and hear about bad things that happen to other people. It is quite different when the same thing happens to you, or your loved one.
Is there anything you can do in order to protect yourself? There is. Quite a bit actually. It’s all based on common sense and, while there are no guarantees in life, you will minimise the risk and make the life of an identity thief a lot harder.
Funny thing about thieves. They don’t like working hard. If you make it hard enough for them, they will usually go away - to find an easier target.
One of the common-sense things you can do in order to protect yourself, and your family, is to make yourself aware of the current scams that may affect you.
The most infamous one at the moment is so a called ‘phishing’ scam. In a nutshell it looks like this:
You get an email that looks like it was sent from your bank. They ask you to log in to your online account and verify some of your details. For your convenience, there is a link included right in the email. All you have to do is click on it an log in. Don’t ever!
The moment you click on that link and log in, the scam artists have your login ID and password recorded. This will enable them to log in to your account and within hours, or days, your account will be cleaned out!.
There are two common-sense approaches to deal with this.
First, you have to realise that your bank already has all the details they need to operate your online account. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to open it in the first place. So, you can most likely quite safely delete the email and forget about it.
Secondly, if you have any doubts as to the authenticity of the email, you can get the bank’s phone number from your local phone book and give them a call. Tell them about the email you received and ask if they tried to contact you. I bet they are going to be as surprised as you are.
And just remember: Whatever you do, never, ever, log in to your bank account, or any other sensitive account for that matter, right from an email. You already have the login link somewhere in your records. If not, go to the bank’s main page and look for an online login page.
According to recent studies, up to 7,000,000 people become identity theft victims each year, in the United States alone. That’s over 19,000 cases a day, or 799 cases an hour. Whichever way you look at it, these are shocking figures. And with more and more people using the Internet, online banking, and other hi-tech services, things aren’t likely to improve any time soon.
In fact, another research, a survey conducted on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission recently, tells us that the situation is even worse. According to the FTC survey report, 4.6% of the US population were identity fraud victims last year - that’s 10 million people.
According to the FTC figures, if someone fraudulently opens a new credit card or another loan account under your name, on average you can expect the dollar amount to go to about $10,200. That’s just an average amount.
To clean up your name, and your credit rating, you will need to deal with this experience. You can expect to spend between $500 and $1,200 of your own hard-earned money cleaning up the mess. You can also expect to invest between 30 and 60 hours of your time.
The above figures are just cold statistics. They say nothing about the emotional trauma, through which you are likely to go when it happens to you. It’s all very well to read and hear about bad things that happen to other people. It is quite different when the same thing happens to you, or your loved one.
Is there anything you can do in order to protect yourself? There is. Quite a bit actually. It’s all based on common sense and, while there are no guarantees in life, you will minimise the risk and make the life of an identity thief a lot harder.
Funny thing about thieves. They don’t like working hard. If you make it hard enough for them, they will usually go away - to find an easier target.
One of the common-sense things you can do in order to protect yourself, and your family, is to make yourself aware of the current scams that may affect you.
The most infamous one at the moment is so a called ‘phishing’ scam. In a nutshell it looks like this:
You get an email that looks like it was sent from your bank. They ask you to log in to your online account and verify some of your details. For your convenience, there is a link included right in the email. All you have to do is click on it an log in. Don’t ever!
The moment you click on that link and log in, the scam artists have your login ID and password recorded. This will enable them to log in to your account and within hours, or days, your account will be cleaned out!.
There are two common-sense approaches to deal with this.
First, you have to realise that your bank already has all the details they need to operate your online account. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to open it in the first place. So, you can most likely quite safely delete the email and forget about it.
Secondly, if you have any doubts as to the authenticity of the email, you can get the bank’s phone number from your local phone book and give them a call. Tell them about the email you received and ask if they tried to contact you. I bet they are going to be as surprised as you are.
And just remember: Whatever you do, never, ever, log in to your bank account, or any other sensitive account for that matter, right from an email. You already have the login link somewhere in your records. If not, go to the bank’s main page and look for an online login page.
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