Credit Report Fact or Fiction
What IS NOT in your credit score?
•Your race, color, religion, national, origin, sex, and marital status
•Your age
•Your salary, occupation, title, employer, date employed, or employment history
•Where you live
•Any interest rate being charged on a particular credit card or other account
•Any items reported as child/family support obligations or rental agreements
•Certain types of inquiries (requests for your report)
•Any information that is not proven to be predictive of future credit performance
•Whether or not your are participating in a credit counseling of any kind
What IS in your credit score?
Payment History
•Account payment information on specific types of accounts (credit cards, retail accounts, mortgages, etc.)
•Presence of adverse public records (bankruptcy, liens, suits, etc)
•Severity of delinquency
•Amount of delinquency
•Time since delinquency, adverse public records, or collection items
Amounts Owed
•Amount owing on accounts
•Lack of a specific type of balance in some cases
•Number of accounts with balances
Length of Credit History
•Time since accounts opened
•Time since account activity
New Credit
•Number of recently opened accounts and the proportion there of
•Number of recent credit inquires
•Re-establishment of positive credit history following past payment problems
Types of Credit Used
•Number of various types of accounts
•A score takes into consideration all these categories of information, not just one or two
•The importance of any factor depends on the overall information in your credit report
