| Your credit score is a numerical representation of your | | | | receive it within 2-5 minutes of completing the required |
| "creditworthiness" based on a statistical analysis of | | | | information to confirm your identity. Once you have |
| your personal credit history. Your score can be | | | | obtained your report you will want to check over it for |
| influenced by a number of past and current activities, | | | | any items that seem out of place or erroneous. Any |
| such as late bill payments, amount of current debt, and | | | | items on your report can be disputed for free, under |
| amount of available credit. Banks, credit card | | | | the law of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and must be |
| companies, and other lenders use your credit rating to | | | | investigated within 45 days. This means you can |
| determine the risk you pose when borrowing money, | | | | probably boost your score 20 or more points in under |
| resulting in higher interest rates for those with low | | | | 2 months, but only if you take the time to read over |
| credit scores. So you're are wondering "How Do I | | | | your report. |
| Check My Credit Score?" Well, it's probably easier | | | | The most commonly used credit score used is called |
| than you think. | | | | the FICO score, formally known as the Fair Isaac |
| All Americans are entitled to request a free copy of | | | | Corporation score. This is the score that you want to |
| their credit report once per calender year, from each | | | | keep as high as possible. It ranges from 300 to 850, |
| of the three major credit monitoring agencies. If you | | | | with any score above 680 being seen by lenders as a |
| request your credit information online, you will usually | | | | safe client with good financial management. |