Free fico score

Your credit score is likely the most important three-digit number in your life.

Your score affects how much you pay for credit, and it can affect other bills you pay, where you live and where you work.

    * Banks and credit card companies review your score when deciding whether to extend you credit and how much interest to charge.
    * A high score can lead to lower car- and home-insurance premiums, a deposit waiver from utility companies and a better service package from the cell-phone company.
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      Impact of the Credit CARD Act on you
    * Many landlords check credit scores before allowing you to sign a lease.
    * Many employers do credit checks on prospective employees.

With so much at stake, it's wise to find out where you stand and take steps to raise your score if it's below 700, particularly before you apply for a mortgage or other loan. Above 760 and you're in the upper echelon. A score below 620 tells people you're not a good risk and dooms you to credit denial or subprime interest rates.
What is a credit score?
The three major credit-reporting agencies -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- use software developed by FICO (formerly Fair Isaac) to rate your risk for assuming debt based on your credit history. The result is commonly known as a FICO score. A recent update to the scoring formula provides consumers with a few advantages -- and some serious new risks.

The free fico score is based on five factors, including payment history, the amounts you owe and the types of credit you've obtained. Personal information like income, occupation, age and marital status are not considered.
The FICO score can range from 300 to 850, although very few reach that pinnacle. Each credit bureau may assign you a different score, based on the information it receives from creditors.

Be Aware of Credit Card Penalties

Credit cards offer a number of benefits. They give us easy access to credit in emergencies. They make it easy to pay for the things we need and want. And when used responsibly, they can build up our credit. But they can also be very expensive, especially when we have to pay penalties.

Credit card companies issue penalties in various forms. These include:

* Late fees – When we’re late paying our phone bills or electric bills, the company often tacks a late fee onto our next bill. The same holds true for credit card companies. The difference is that the fees from credit card companies are usually much, much higher. It’s not unusual for them to charge late fees of up to $39.

* Overlimit fees – Most credit card providers will not allow debtors to charge purchases in excess of their credit limits. But if your card is maxed out, interest charges could push your balance over the limit. For each month your balance is over the limit, the creditor can impose an overlimit fee.

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Credit Crunch Explained

The current credit crunch originates back to the problems with the implementation of the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program).

The U.S. Treasury, under the direction of Secretary Paulson, asked for and received permission from Congress to bail out financial institutions to the tune of $700 billion dollars.  Initially, the first $250 billion dollars was given those institutions that had lost billions of dollars due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

As stated by Bloomberg, “The point of injecting money into banks was to improve their capital cushions, which had been eroded by all the losses, so they could increase their lending to each other, to businesses and to consumers.”

However, that has not occurred.  Instead, the banks are not lending and businesses cannot obtain credit.  Thus, unemployment is on the rise and the economy is in dire straits.

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Lost or Stolen Credit Card?

When it comes to finances, few things are as unnerving as losing a credit card or having it stolen. By the time you realize it’s gone, someone could be living the good life and charging it to you. But by taking action quickly, you can avoid most, if not all, liability for unauthorized charges.

When their cards go missing, cardholders are protected by the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA). This law mandates that as long as you report your card missing or stolen in a timely manner, you can be held liable for no more than $50 in unauthorized charges. And if you report it before the card is used, you can’t be held responsible for any charges made.

If you find that one or more of your cards are missing, here’s what you need to do:

1. Report the missing card to the issuer immediately. If you don’t know the phone number to call, it should be printed on your credit card statements. Reporting the theft or loss as quickly as possible is crucial, so it’s best to keep a list of your card numbers and the fraud reporting phone numbers in a safe place for easy access.

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The Importance of Checking Credit Card Bills

Paying bills is something that no one looks forward to doing. It’s one of those things we just want to get out of the way. So we often look at how much is owed, write a check or pay online, and forget about it. But when it comes to credit card bills, that’s not such a good strategy.

Credit card statements detail each and every charge we’ve made since the last statement. That doesn’t make for a very exciting read, but it is an important one. If you don’t carefully go over the charges on your bill, you could end up paying more than you actually owe.

Here are some of the things to look for on your statements:

* Watch for charges that you didn’t authorize. If your card is not with you at all times, someone could have used it without your permission. And even if you haven’t lost your card, someone could have fraudulently obtained and used your card number.

* Compare each charge with the corresponding receipt. Mistakes happen, and you could have been charged an incorrect amount.

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