Before I started spending most of my time writing for Bargaineering.com, I spent many of my formative years at Fatwallet (as far back as 2001!). One of the big ideas in the Finance forums was the App-O-Rama, where you applied for a lot of credit cards in a short period of time (on the order of just a few days). The idea was that by applying for many cards over just a few days, you would be approved because the hard inquiries wouldn’t appear in time for the other issues to see them. By the time they showed up, you had a lot of unsecured credit card debt.

The consequence of the App-O-Rama strategy was that your credit score took a heavy beating as all the hard inquiries appeared. I wrote a guest post at Consumerist covering the difference between a hard inquiry and a soft inquiry, if you want the full details. While I never conducted an App-O-Rama, I was intrigued by the strategy and followed all the forum posts by people reporting back on their experiences.

So how does credit report bumpage come into play?
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Did you know that TransUnion started as a parent holding company for a railcar leasing company? Or that Experian is not based in the United States? I started reading about the history of some of the credit bureaus and was fascinated with what I found. For example, did you know Experian was founded in 1980 while Equifax was founded in 1899?

Read on to find out more about the major credit reporting agencies.

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No.

Your credit score is a number calculated from the information in your credit report. Your credit report will contain information about your loans, other credit obligations, and negative actions in public record (bankruptcy, collections, court judgments). It actually contains absolutely no banking information so closing, or opening in most cases, a bank account does not hurt or help your score.

In some cases, your credit score might be hurt if you open a bank account. The most common case is if you open a checking account with overdraft protection. Since the bank may be giving you a short term, the overdraft protection, they may do a hard inquiry to see how credit worthy you are. If you are concerned, always ask the bank if they pull your credit and whether it’s considered a hard inquiry or soft inquiry.

So does that mean my recent rash of bank account closings will have no effect? Not necessarily. As you may remember in my post about checking your specialty reports, there is a ChexSystems report that collects information about your banking activity. Banks may see my activity, frown upon it, and deny me a bank account in the future. Is that enough to stop me from simplifying my finances? Not at all.

The 25% off code may have expired but people are reporting that CPPSAVINGS works for 20% off.

Every so often MyFICO, the consumer arm of credit score equation creator Fair Isaac Corporation, offers discount codes to some of their products. The product I’ve had the most interaction with has been the MyFICO ScoreWatch product, which has a 30 day trial, so I haven’t been keeping close tabs on the promotional codes lately.

The latest promotional code is valid until September 30th and it’s FinancialHelp25. It drops the price of all their products by 25%, making them:

• FICO Standard: Equifax – Normally $15.95, now only $11.96.
• FICO Standard: TransUnion – Normally $15.95, now only $11.96.
• Suze Orman’s FICO Kit – Normally $49.95, now only $37.46.
• myFICO ScoreWatch – A standing 30 day trial, $89.95 a year or $8.95 thereafter.

In the purchase process there will be a place to put in a promotional code, just enter FinancialHelp25 for 25% off.

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Whether you think we’re out of the recession or not (I would bet “no” based on the responses last week), it’s always important to play a little personal finance defense. Today, the topic is on credit scores and how to improve your score by taking a few small steps.

These aren’t steps you can use to boost your score 100 points overnight… those don’t exist. These are simply smart moves you can make, over and over again, that will ensure your score will be as accurate and as high as possible. And if anyone says they can boost your score 100 overnight, chances are it’s a scam (unless you have some egregious errors on your report!).

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A few years ago I had a little credit report error incident. I just started a new job and was going through a background investigation, which included a review of my credit history. In the course of that review, the investigator noticed that there was an address listing on the report that I hadn’t previously disclosed. The reason I never mentioned the address is because it wasn’t mine.

When he told me, I feared the worst. I thought I was joining the millions of people who have their identity stolen each year. In fact, just a year before that, a friend was telling me how it took him several months to get his identity recovered and even then everything credit-related was a pain. So my mind immediately jumped to ID theft.

Fortunately, it was an isolated, albeit strange, credit report error that was relatively easy to resolve. The error was the addition of an address, a Social Security Number (that differed from my SSN by one digit), and a telephone/cable package. I went through the usual protocols of disputing the information, thinking the onus was on the other party to prove that information was true, but I was wrong.

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Whether it’s driving on the highway or surfing on the information superhighway, I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for credit reports and credit scores. With the economy weak, people are looking to play defense and advertising are looking to capitalize. Like I’ve said in the past, checking your credit report annually is one of the best financial things you can do for yourself.

I have one word of warning for you: Don’t ever go to a company that isn’t Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, or Fair Isaac. Never ever.

Here’s why:

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This week I had the great pleasure of being on ABC News’ Money Matter television program. For nearly seven minutes of LIVE television, I discussed credit reports with host Tanya Rivero. We discussed how often I check my credit reports, the different types of credit inquiries, what’s in your credit report, and how damaging late payments can be on your credit worthiness and credit score.

Click here to watch!

Being on live television was certainly a treat, a bit nerve-wracking, but I think I did alright for my first foray into live television right?

Right?

Please let me know what you think!

I’m a numbers guy. I love seeing numbers, trying to find trends, and playing with statistics. That’s probably one of the reasons why credit scores fascinate me so much, they are able to distill a bunch of actions you take as a person and package it up into this convenient three digit number that lenders go nuts over. I’m not saying the system is good or bad, but it’s the system and you have to play by the rules of the game.

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Most people are now aware that they can get a copy of their credit history from each of the three major credit bureaus every twelve months. We can thank the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) for that right (which you can exercise by going to annualcreditreport.com). What most people aren’t aware of is that the FCRA also gives you the same level access for other “specialty” reports as well. There are several companies that don’t create “credit” reports but do collect your data into what are commonly referred to as special reports. Fortunately, you are afforded the same rights to those reports as well!

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