Think you have all the information you need because you know your credit score? Think again.
Those three-digit scores are important, but they’re just one of several numbers that can have a big impact on your future credit. Just last month, TransUnion launched a Payment Behaviour Score, which “analyzes every stage of the customer lifecycle” and […]

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Settling an old debt may help your conscience, but it won’t do anything to fix your credit or boost your credit score. But many consumers seem to think otherwise. Many agree under pressure from debt collectors to settle old debts, without understanding the implications of their decisions.
The fortunate ones weigh the consequences, like this […]

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There’s no correlation between academic achievement and common sense. So here are five random but essential skills to share with your kids to prepare them for life away from home.

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Green home remodeling is going mainstream…at least in theory. Vermont-based green building consultant Peter Yost said the concept has grown significantly in the past decade, especially because of the soaring cost of energy. In 1999, people didn’t talk about carbon-neutral or zero-energy homes, few Americans worried about global warming and there were only 7,000 Energy […]

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Foreclosure scams are successful because they target consumers who are vulnerable, frightened and desperate. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal agency that charters, regulates and supervises national banks, notes that potential victims are easy to find: mortgage lenders publish notices before foreclosing on homes.
“After reading such notices, con artists approach their […]

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Line-of-credit mortgages are illusions, like a Julian Beever’s one-dimensional sidewalk drawings.

What Do I Need to Know?
If you believe the companies that are marketing a popular mortgage acceleration scheme, the system is as good as magic. They say a line-of-credit mortgage—a product more commonly known as a checking account mortgage—can cut the payments on a 30-year […]

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Illustration by Christina Ullman, Ohio State Univ.

But Can’t They Help Me Save Money? A mortgage acceleration scheme that originated in Australia is attracting attention from debt-strapped consumers. Known as mortgage checking accounts or line-of-credit mortgages, they allegedly allow homeowners to pay off mortgages twice as fast.
But experts caution that mortgage checking accounts are complex, confusing […]

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A new credit scoring formula that changes the way lenders evaluate risk is on hold. Fair Isaac Corp., developer of the FICO credit score, announced last summer it was changing its scoring model to remove a popular score improvement loophole. The system was supposed to go into effect last fall.
But controversy over the revisions as […]

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If you have a student loan, check your credit. You could be a potential victim of a computer glitch by the nation’s leading provider of student loans. Reston, VA-based Sallie Mae incorrectly reported some accounts as delinquent on a routine download of information to a major credit-reporting agency. The coding error made it seem as […]

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