CREDIT REPORTS

If someone has ever requested to pull your credit report, it’s likely that you were told that it would be a hard check or soft check, leaving you to wonder what the difference is between the two. There is a difference and it is something that should be understood before you allow someone to check your credit at all. To help you differentiate, let’s look more closely at what they are and how they can affect your credit report or credit score.

Hard Credit Check Versus Soft Credit Check

Currently there are millions of unemployed Americans looking for work. The job market is incredibly tight and employers are demanding perfection out of their applicant pools.

Aside from the basic job seeking skill set required for the process, candidates are under greater scrutiny. The checking of applicants credit scores is become more common and can limit your chances of finding gainful employment.

The Federal Trade Commission has officially made a commitment to crack down on companies that that offer misleading advertising regarding free credit reports. According to reports, the FTC will now require companies to clearly state in their advertising that the only site authorized to offer free credit reports is AnnualCreditReport.com.

Credit Card Bill of Rights Changes the Game

For many, the credit report is something that is taken for granted. It is often viewed merely as a piece of information that doesn’t make a difference and therefore doesn’t need to be checked on a regular basis. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Your credit report not only plays a crucial role in your life, but actually dictates in many ways what type of future you will be granted.

If you’re not yet in the habit of checking your credit report because you don’t think it’s important or you’re turned off by its price tag, it’s time to take a look at reasons that checking your credit report regularly is not only a good idea, it’s crucial.

Isn’t the credit report one of the most confusing things on the planet? Not only is there more than one credit bureau taking in your credit information, there are three places to track all of the data that is circulating about you.

There is no doubt that the entire process of keeping track of your credit reports and making sure the right information is on them can be exhausting. But what can be even more exhausting is acquiring the wrong information about credit reporting, which could have a horrible effect on both the report and your credit score.

Aside from Christmas, Valentine’s Day may just be the biggest gift-giving holiday of the year. Women in particular look forward to receiving big bouquets of flowers at their office, boxes of candy and maybe even a diamond bracelet (or two).

For better or for worse, much of modern American life takes place thanks to credit. It’s how millions of people go on memorable trips and vacations. It’s how young families put down roots, in the form of mortgage loans for their new dream-house. It’s how people go to college, with the help of student loans.

Any sum of money which is lent to you in the expectation that it will be paid back is credit, and we need it many times in our lives in order to get to where we want to go, and do what we want to do. This is why a bad credit report can literally bring all your dreams crashing down, because if no one lends you money when you need it, you’re on your own.

A charge off is the bane of any credit report. A charge off, the credit industry’s term for a delinquent account that will not be repaid, gets sent to the big credit reporting bureaus and lowers a person’s credit score by a significant amount.

Any lender will see a credit report with a charge off on it and be extremely averse to approving any loan or line of credit for the person responsible for the charge off. If you’ve got charge offs on your credit report, and you want to buy a new home, then you can expect problems. There are ways to avoid charge offs, however, which are good to know before they happen.

How to Avoid Chargeoffs

Money is, for most people, one of the biggest issues in their lives. It’s all about how much you make, how much you spend, what you have, how much you have saved. Thinking, worrying, stressing, planning, hoping and dreaming about money take up a huge percentage of our mental space.

For people with bad credit, having massive anxiety about money can take up 100% of their mental space because their situations have become so dire – and their creditors so insistent – that it’s not possible to think about anything else. When your credit report is bad, you know you’re paying for it in psychological terms – and you’re also going to be paying for it in other ways. When you’ve got bad credit, life can become unbearable.

If you’ve got a bad credit report, you may have arrived at this tough, anxiety-inducing place through no fault of your own.

Many people have a problem with spending too much money. Let’s face it, it’s fun to possess all those bright, shiny things we see for sale out there, whether it’s a brand new BMW convertible or a suede jacket you just have to have. Temptations are everywhere, right? Unfortunately, these temptations seduce many people into living beyond their means – way beyond. The result is debt, serious financial problems and misery, and a thoroughly bruised and battered credit report that prevent them from borrowing money ever again – no matter how badly they need it. Many people with credit card debt (or debts incurred through other ways and reasons) know that the picture is dire, but just can’t bring themselves to check their credit status. This is what the experts call “willful denial,” and it’s guaranteed to make everything worse.

If you’ve incurred an embarrassing trail of bad debts, then you know in your heart of hearts that your credit report is going to be painful to see. For this reason you’re probably extremely resistant to even finding out what it is, let alone begin the process of repairing your bad credit report. You imagine what it must detail and you get so worked up about it, that psychologically it’s just easier to bury the idea completely. Many people are haunted by the concept of their credit report, year after year after year; simply because the thought of it terrifies them – but somehow they think it’s easier to live that way than deal with it and their fears. However, the irony is that in many many cases, your credit report may not be as bad as you think – after all, you’ve never looked at it, right? Additionally, by going over it, you may find that half its problems are easily fixable – and as soon as you fix them your credit report score goes up. So start taking the smart steps to repairing your credit.