CREDIT » Credit Scores & Reports

You are not your credit score. It’s true that banks and other businesses place a lot of emphasis on your three-digit score when they’re deciding whether or not to take you on as a customer, but that’s not all they consider.

Your credit score doesn’t tell the whole story–it only predicts the likelihood that you will pay your bills based on how you’ve paid in the past. And as evidenced by the mortgage meltdown, placing more emphasis on credit scores than ability to repay is bad for everyone involved.

Following its promise issued less than two weeks ago, S&P downgraded the credit ratings of dozens of banks on Tuesday. This is following S&P’s announcement on Nov. 18 about a pending credit rating downgrade decision within the next three weeks.

Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs Affected by S&P Downgrade

The United States has lost its final stable outlook from the three largest credit-rating companies after Fitch Ratings lowered its outlook to a negative U.S. credit rating. The credit rating agency recently announced it had lowered the outlook after a congressional debt committee failed to agree on deficit cuts last week.

Debt Committee Failure Lead to Poor U.S. Credit Rating Outlook

Layaway is making a comeback, but don’t fall victim to its false allure. Layaway stores use phrases like “the easy way to pay” and “flexible payment options” to trick shoppers into the costly entrapment of layaway programs. Promises to save money are empty and unfounded.

How Stores with Layaway Profit from Your Losses

U.S. banks, like Citigroup and Bank of America to name a few,  are facing credit downgrade ratings within three weeks, according to a new announcement from Standard & Poor’s (S&P). The ratings agency said that it is in the process of updating its credit ratings. As a result, up to 30 of the world’s biggest banks could see their ratings drop.

Steep competition for top-tier credit card customers has prompted card companies to look elsewhere for business, says a new report from credit reporting agency TransUnion. Many companies have switched their focus to consumers with less-than-stellar credit scores.

Scores Below 700 Acquire More Credit Card Accounts

In Online Security: Is Your Small Business at Risk?, Tim Chen of NerdWallet.com explains how small business credit card and bank account information is especially suseptible to identity theft. If you’re interested in learning more, view the references used in writing this article:

Hackers Take $1 Billion a Year as Banks Blame Their Clients (Bloomberg)

When we hear about possible identity theft and data breaches in the news, they almost always involve a large corporation. Remember when the PlayStation network got hacked back in April of 2011? That incident put 77 million people’s credit card info at risk. Scary, right?

By Casey Bond

Every one of life’s major milestones comes with financial considerations that must be made before taking that next big step. In this series, we walk you through these financial considerations to help you determine if you’re truly ready to cross life’s major bridges and so you can do it debt-free.

By Stacey Bumpus

We very often give official agencies, especially those run by the government, a great deal of confidence in their accuracy. In actuality, however, big agencies have so much information to manage that they often make more mistakes than your neighborhood Mom and Pop shop. In fact, these mistakes can have a devastating impact on individuals’ finances and credit.