I have a few questions re: credit information ?
I have a few questions re: credit information. First of all, a little
background: My coworker told me that I should never give banks/creditors
the phone number of the home where I am staying. I'm living with my
boyfriend's parents, and his mother is often behind on most of the
bills, including the phone bill. According to my coworker, anyone
doing a credit check will associate the phone number with HER credit
habits, and may deny me credit. Is this true? This is mildly distressing,
because I should have a good credit record, and am never late on
payments.
Another question: How do you find out what your actual "credit
rating" is? I do have a credit report, but I don't see any numerical
rating.
How about opening and closing credit card accounts?
I have a tendency to open a new credit card, never use it and
then close it again. I started doing this in response to a
"rewards" program where you actually got cash for openning a
credit card account. I got a lot of store cards, too, for
special offers. I guess that leads to me asking how many credit
cards accounts should one limit themselves to? I'm not sure
how credit is evaluated.
-Your co-worker doesn't know what he's talking about. Giving
false information on a credit application is fraud. Creditors also
do not look at a phone number when they do credit reports;
they look at social security number. Phone numbers can, and
often are, usually shared among different people; social
security numbers are unique to each individual.
Ask the credit reporting agency who supplied your credit report.
Opening and closing credit card accounts will not be viewed
favorably by potential new creditors.
-Credit granters use scoring systems to determine if you get credit or not.
Naturally they look at pay record, how long you have had credit, etc, but among
other factors they look at are:
Number of accounts (too many represents higher risk..you could charge up a
fortune)
Running up an account to its limit soon after opening it.
Don't open a ton of accounts--it makes you look high risk A lender will wonder
why you continue to seek credit if you have enough credit already available to
you. Forget the store cards..sometimes those are even viewed as the domain of
the credit weak (ie those who can't get Visa, MC etc)