Information Center – News and Articles about Credit Cards
Ezpreapproval.com presents the Information Center — a new and improved credit card news service. We will inform you with up-to-date articles on credit cards for good credit, bad or no-credit history. Get information on best credit card deals for student credit cards, cash back credit cards and business credit cards. Learn about the top deals on credit cards with the lowest APR deals and other hot issues.
When Sending a Credit Card Application Don't Count on Credit Repair
Everybody wants to make a dollar. The United States was founded on the free market blueprint. People have made millions from selling everything from a pet rock to a wallet specifically designed for your credit cards. And now the latest snake oil salesman has slithered into town...the credit repair agency. Now, as with most any business, there are legitimate enterprises and not legitimate enterprises. But it's the bad ones that get the most press.
Some of the claims these companies make are way beyond what they can actually accomplish. Clear up your credit in just 48 hours, "and "Remove all negative items from your credit report in just 30 days" are claims made by con artists, not legitimate credit repair agencies. Let's look at the myths of the industry.
Myth #1. Let Us Repair Your Credit Report
If you have poor credit, and you are only eligible for bad credit credit cards, you are probably well used to your mailbox and email being bombarded with solicitations to repair your credit. But what do these credit repair agencies actually do? Collect their fees and then go about their merry way. Despite the smoke screen many of these credit repair agencies distract you with; they are just as limited by the Fair Credit Reporting Act as you are. The FCRA already dictates what can and can't be reported on your credit report and there's nothing you or the credit repair agency can do about it. The FCRA also dictates under what circumstances you can challenge an item on your report and which ones you can challenge. So why hire a credit repair agency. They can't do anything that you can't do.
Their claim to be able to remove any negative item from your credit report in a timely manner is little more than a shiny bauble to distract you. The method these repair agencies generally employ is to bombard the credit reporting agency with a letter for every negative item on your report challenging the item, whether legitimate or not. They do this in the hopes of hoping something in their favor slips through the cracks.
Another approach the credit reporting agencies use is waiting until December to send in a letter. Most businesses take a significant amount of time off during the month of December so the repair agent is banking on the fact that your complaint will slip through the cracks. Creditors have 30 days to respond to a complaint. If they don't the negative item has to be removed from your credit report.
So, what can be done when it comes to negative information contained within a credit report? That depends on whether the information is correct or not. When negative information in a report is accurate, only the passage of time can assure its removal. A consumer reporting company can report most accurate negative information for seven years and bankruptcy information for 10 years. Information about an unpaid judgment against a consumer can be reported for seven years or until the statute of limitations runs out, whichever is longer.
You, as the owner of that credit report can do all this yourself through legal channels. You can file a dispute free of charge. You can contact your creditor to try and have a negative item removed yourself. You can even request a full blown investigation of the accuracy of an item. Again, you can do this all yourself.
Myth #2. Creating a New Credit Report
The second scam used by credit reporting agencies is the "Create a new credit report" ploy. With this method, you, as the consumer, are encouraged to walk away from your credit report and start a new one under an Employee's Identification Number instead of a Social Security number. After you receive the number, you are encouraged to use that number instead of your Social Security number when filling out credit applications and...BINGO...you have a brand new credit report, not linked to your old report, completely free of any derogatory information. WRONG! This is a pure lie. This amounts to little more than fraud and if caught, you will likely be prosecuted.
So be cautious when some one offers you to repair your credit history. It is not legally possible. You will wind up with even worse score and will not be able to send another credit card application for a long time.
Most credit tips say that the sooner you pay off your credit card balance - the less money you will lose on interest. On-time payments will favorably bound back on your credit score and payment history. This kind of advice is what we all are used to hear and read on the Web, in financial magazines, in tips columns. But does this financial behavior model really have a positive effect on your FICO score and credit report?
How can it be questioned, you ask? A perfectly disciplined plastic owner that pays off his or her balance before a lender could say Jack Robinson. Is not it any creditor's dream? No, it is not always so. Let's find out why a lender would want a different behavior model from a borrower and when this kind of paying down debts can weigh heavily against a cardholder.
Read more
There are a number of embarrassing situations that are just a nightmare for cardholder. Feel no wallet in your pocket just before the cash register? See some unauthorized charges in your credit report? Loose you wallet with all your plastics in it? Very soon we are going to have no fear of these things, thanks to amazing technical progress.
Indivos Corp. which majors in computer hardware and software development has been working on an electronic system for making payments over a number of years. The thing about this system is that it enables transactions to be made by scanning customers' fingertips. A number of retailers have already expressed interest in testing the new system.
Read more
Active credit card use is a sign of a society with well-developed market relationships. More and more people get involved in buying goods and services with plastics. Using virtual funds to make real purchases is very convenient. But this extended buying power has led Americans to a dangerous trend. Over 40% of American households, according to the USA Federal Reserve statistics, spend more money than they make.
In the average, every American of these 40% spends $1.2 per every $1 he or she earns. Plastics have changed people's spending habits. These plastic devices allow and encourage people to spend more and more money. Around 18% of all purchases made by Americans involve credit card use. About 24% of the purchases are made with other types of plastics.
Read more
If you are determined to eliminate your credit card debts and you have good credit, getting a balance transfer card is a good idea. You can shift your credit card balances with high interest rate to a card with much lower rate or 0% APR at all. But there is one thing that can reduce your profit from this kind of a deal. It is balance transfer fee.
Most balance transfer cards come with a fee for a transfer. Not long ago you could easily find a plastic for balance transfers with no fee. However, due to the credit card market crisis and economy slowdown, lenders have pulled these deals from the market. And now it is rather hard for a customer to find a balance transfer card that comes with no fee. But there are some ways to negotiate a better balance transfer deal.
Read more