What Exactly Is A Credit Score? Credit Report?

Credit Report is a detailed statement of your credit history. It provides lenders the information about how you manage your finances from paying your bills, debts, bill payment history such mortgage payments, settling credit card balances and more.

A particular lender or creditor depends on a larger part on what is reflected on your credit report whether these are accurate or not. Therefore, it is very important for everyone to check on your credit report at least once a year to see if all of the information recorded in your credit history are true and work on repairing reports in your credit history about an error which is needed in order to repair your credit history.

AOL Money has an interesting information about requesting free credit report stipulated under the Fair Credit Reporting Act(available in pdf file) or with a fee with one of the three major credit bureaus in the US: Equifax, Experian and Trans Union.

Scams Loom to Increase Damaged Credit Scores

People who have had bad credit due to non payment of any outstanding bills or any household utilities, or those who have experienced bad credit due to finances gone out of control (declaring bankruptcy), one may find it really tempting to get the assistance of institutions or websites that offers services for a fee that profess "healing" your bad credit score and miraculously get it back to its normal status.

According to finance experts, fixing your credit score will always take time and there has been no easy or quick way to fix it. One needs to establish good record on your payment history and pay all your debts and keep all existing balances low are just some of the key to getting your credit score's feet on the ground.

A President of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Chicago, Catherine Williams, simply explained that, "the only way to heal your credit is with new, regular, ontime payments — and by paying off the old debt." SmartMoney has the latest article on this issue.