Many creditors monitor your credit report on a regular basis and they will not hesitate for a moment to adversely adjust your rates and terms if your credit rating falls out of a specific range even if you made every payment on time. Inversely, the same creditors will not automatically adjust your account to reflect better rates and terms when your score substantially rises unless you force them to.

In other words, people who see their scores dramatically improve have to first feel empowered to either coerce their current creditors for a better deal or go out and shop and compare for better financing terms. It then becomes more of a personal issue based on a consumer’s knowledge of credit and with confidence in negotiating with creditors.
 

Story Continues Below ê

Today's Top Stories

● Are You Being Watched? - It is Difficult to Pass Unnoticed ● Teaching Kids at Home - In Defense of Home Schooling ● Preserving Marital Bliss - Good Credit Marrying Bad Credit ● No More Hosiery - Is Pantyhose Losing Its Legs?

Yesterday's Top Stories

● Embracing Liberalism - The Rush to National Suicide ● Billing School Districts - Charging for Remedial Education ● Liberal Ignorance - Receiving Liberal Hate Mail ● Voodoo Panties - Ex-Boyfriend Creates Voodoo Shrine ● Today We March - Tomorrow We Vote! ● Urban Sprawl Rules - Inner Cities Continue Decline

Consequently, the knowledge about what goes into a credit score is still very much a late occurrence. In the recent past, a creditor wasn’t even permitted to allow a customer to know what his or her credit score was. In fact, a creditor could face serious retaliation if he did continually leak out a score. A CRA would simply revoke the subscriber status and cut off access to any future credit reports.

On the public end, the Fair Isaac Corporation and the credit bureaus wouldn’t even tell consumers how their own credit information was factored into a score, much less give hints on how to improve it.

Congressional and state pressure eventually forced Fair Isaac and the credit bureaus to allow the consumer to see his or her own credit score and to know which types of credit behavior were factored into that score. Even though this new openness was a huge development from the past, for the most part consumers are still in the dark about many aspects of credit scoring. For instance, this survey also found that:

● 54% of Americans knew that maxing out a credit card would lower a credit score.
● 20% realized that making only minimum payments on credit cards would hurt their score.

The scoring calculation from Fair Isaac is still a proprietary secret that will not be divulged to the public.

In addition to a lack of knowledge, there remains a proliferation of sub-prime products on the market. These finance companies allow easy approvals along with high interest rates and terrible terms. Big ticket items such as furniture companies, car lots, etc., depend on the sub-prime lenders so that they can pressure their customers to make a purchase right on the spot instead of having them shop and compare more legitimate lenders for better rates. And add the sub-prime revolving credit predators to the mix like gas and department store cards and a typical consumer may have a few unsavory obligations that have awful terms.

However, there is still a tremendous potential for enormous savings for the consumer. Improving a credit score by 30 points is not a gargantuan task but it does requires knowledgeable and empowered consumers who are willing to make a few extra phone calls, shop around for better rates, and compare lenders.

We want your opinion! Tell us what you thought about this article. Click the Your Feedback menu item to send us your comments.