Saturday, July 23, 2011

The Ins and Outs of Credit Bureaus

Credit bureaus play an important role in your financial life, acting like a warehouse, collecting information about all your financial activity such as when you take a loan out on a car or apply for a new credit card. Lenders are the suppliers of this information and not only report transactions that are favorable to your credit but ones that may be not as favorable such as late payments of bills and large debt. Public records are another source of information for credit bureaus and they use all this material to create your credit report and scores.

The material that is stored in credit bureaus falls into several categories. There is personal information such as your name, social security number, date of birth, addresses at which you have lived and a history of your employment. If you have had any activity in a court system with regard to financial judgments, such as a bankruptcy, tax lien or foreclosure, then this information is maintained by the credit bureaus. They also keep track of every inquiry someone makes about your credit report and scores but the greatest amount of information that they store is that which about your loans and credit cards. This can include details about the type of loan or credit card, the date the account was opened, the account or loan balance, the status of the account or loan, payment activity, comments and your liability on the account. Negative items which have been closed out are usually not part of your credit report and scores.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Getting Cell Phone Contracts With Bad Credit

So you see everyone with a cell phone in their hands these days, but for those who have terrible credit, this can seem like a dream versus a reality. But while you may be thinking that this is a far-fetched dream that isn't going to happen - this honestly isn't the case. When it comes to getting a cell phone with bad credit, it is definitely going to be more difficult, but, it is a possible thing that you can do. It is an unavoidable part of life, that you are going to have times when times are tough financially, but you can get around this if you are dedicated to do so. You're not going to see every single cell phone company willing to put their names and phones on the line for you, but there are some companies that have taken the time to actually think about those in unfortunate situations, and how important it truly is for these people, like yourself, to get their own phone.