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6 Ways You might be Hurting Your Credit Score
If you've been trying to boost your credit score—which is a good idea, since people with higher scores tend to pay lower interest rates on loans—you might be going about it all wrong. It turns out that many people don't know just what helps, and hurts, their credit scores. Here are six ways you might be accidentally damaging your score:
1. Avoiding credit altogether. While living a debt-free life sounds like a good idea, it can actually make it harder to take out a loan when you want to. That's because lenders look for experience with managing debt—they want to see that you can make consistent, on-time payments each month—before deciding whether or not to issue you any more of it.
2. Comparison shopping. While checking around for the best price is a savvy move in theory, in practice, it can ding your score. When you call different lenders to check on mortgage rates or auto loans and they issue you a quote, they first check your credit history with the credit bureaus. That can look like you're preparing to take on too much debt, which concerns lenders. While the impact isn't huge, it can hurt people with limited credit histories more, because they don't have much experience to balance out the negative impact from the credit checks.
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Does the Nigerian prince exist?
The quick answer is that Nigeria is a federal republic and not a kingdom. There are no princes whose funds are frozen and need help from an American stranger.
A few years ago, I had a friend who shared a story of a struggling prince in a far away land whose money was frozen. The prince had no one else to turn to for help. She was chosen. My friend corresponded with the prince’s lawyer through email and she was convinced she had won the lottery. She even excused the bad grammar in the email indicating English wasn’t their first language.
If you’ve read these emails you might be familiar with the story of a prince or benefactor of a large estate that needs help to pay for tax liens. Payment of these liens would free up the millions that were frozen. There are variations to this story.
My friend wasn’t going to receive a multi-million dollar payout immediately. The lawyer needed her help by clearing a smaller check. She would receive a cashier’s check for the amount of $5,000 and was asked to Western Union $2,000 back leaving her a hefty commission of $3,000 for her troubles.
My friend did as she was instructed and deposited the check. The check was cleared as a courtesy. [Keep in mind that check deposit holds vary per institution policy and government regulations. If you have a good relationship with your credit union or bank, chances are they'll make the check amount available to you in good faith. But that doesn't mean the check has cleared the bank its been drawn on.]
READ MORE: http://blog.phroogal.com/does-the-nigerian-prince-exist/#.Uh5L6q3D8m5
Congress OKs cheaper student loans - CNN MONEY
The House on approved a bipartisan bill that ensures lower interest rates on loans for students heading to college this fall.
Members of the House voted 392 to 31 to lower rates for undergraduates taking out government loans this school year to 3.86% -- cheaper than the 6.8% interest rate that kicked in on July 1. The new rates would be retroactive and apply to loans taken out after July 1.
The bill has been signed into law.
It has provisions for rates to go higher in coming years.
As House members debated the bill, many Republicans took credit for the deal. They noted that the Senate version wasn't much different from their own student loan bill, which linked rates to the bond markets.
"My colleagues and I have been fighting for months for a long-term market-based solution that will serve students and taxpayers, and the legislation before us today will do just that," said Minnesota Republican John Kline, who runs the House education panel.
The new rule doesn't apply to loans that students get from private lenders. It only affects Stafford loans, which are made by the U.S. government to help finance a college education.
On July 1, the interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans doubled from 3.4% to 6.8%, affecting 7.4 million students. The subsidized loans are based on financial need and account for about 26% of all federal student loans, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Unsubsidized loans and graduate loans were already paying 6.8% interest rates.
READ MORE: http://www.money.cnn.com/2013/07/31/pf/college/student-loan-house/index.html
Debt-Free or Skinny? Survey Answers Which We'd Rather Be
Americans are notoriously body-conscious. We're also money-conscious. But does our obsession with weight and looks trump our concern about our personal finances?
A new survey by Credit Karma, a financial tracking and educational site, and Harris Interactive found that yes, Americans are more concerned about their waistlines than our bottom lines.
The most startling fact to come out of the June 2013 survey is that 72 percent of the 2,021 respondents said they would rather live with their current debt than gain 25 pounds and be completely debt-free. Only 28 percent said they would be willing to gain that much weight to get out of debt.
In a similar vein, 43 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement: "How much I weigh is more important than how much debt I have."
And if you think that it's women care more than men about their weight, you'll be surprised to learn that men were more likely to agree with that statement (49 percent) than women (38 percent).
Among those surveyed, 74 percent said they have some debt and 46 percent said they have credit card debt. The mean amount of credit card debt for the group was $5,900.
Some of the other findings of the survey include:
•64 percent of those surveyed think about their physical appearance more than their debt.
•35 percent worry more about how they look than the debt they're in.
•70 percent said they care more about their physical health than their financial health.
But interestingly, when the cases got more extreme, the positions flipped. Given the choice between being obese and debt-free or their ideal weight but facing bankruptcy, 62 percent chose the option of being obese, while 38 percent would rather face bankruptcy.
READ MORE: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/08/05/debt-free-or-skinny-survey-americans-prefer/
The Worst ATM PIN "Number" Is.......
1234 Surprise! It looks like we have a problem with creativity.
There are 10,000 different possible four-digit ATM PINs , but almost 11 percent of PINs are 1234.
In a study by Data Genetics, in which 3.4 million passwords were analyzed, the most popular, and therefore most dangerous PIN numbers were discovered.
The top 10 most common PINs:
1.1234
2.1111
3.0000
4.1212
5.7777
6.1004
7.2000
8.4444
9.2222
10.6969
The study used data from "released/exposed/discovered password tables and security breaches," since you can't get access to PIN number databases, Data Genetics explains.
The top 10 most common passwords make up over 20 percent of all of the passwords found, and 26.83% of all passwords could be guessed by attempting the top 20 most popular combinations. The study also revealed that four digit numbers starting with 19 (the century today's adults were born in) are bad passwords.
So what's the solution? READ MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/worst-pin-numbers_n_3696560.html
