Profile: Maxine Sweet is vice president of Experian North America’s Public Education organization and leads Experian’s consumer education, community involvement and corporate responsibility teams. Maxine is responsible for helping consumers understand credit reporting and use credit wisely. She strives to protect the benefits of information use in a way that balances the interests of business with the concerns of consumers.
In our busy lives, it is easy to miss paying a bill.
However, your lenders won’t accept excuses for why they you didn’t pay them as you agreed to do. For example, your bankcard company cannot make excuses for being late in paying the merchants where you made your purchases. When you don’t pay, they still have to pay on your behalf.
Missed payments can have a severe impact on your credit scores. And lower credit scores will often penalize you with higher interest rates – which can end up costing you tens-of-thousands of dollars throughout your life.
So here are five strategies to help you build the best credit scores . . .
A credit report is like a report card that provides lenders insight into how you use credit.
If you’re paying debts on time and keeping debts low on credit accounts, you’re building a great credit history that will help you earn lower interest rates on loans and will help you in a variety of other ways, too.
There are many myths going around about what hurts or improves your credit scores.
Here is a list of seven popular myths about credit scores and credit reports you should know about:
Unfortunately, many people have received poor credit advice and been taken advantage from credit repair companies. Many people don’t realize that there isn’t anything that a credit repair service is able to legally do for you that you can’t do yourself for little or no expense.
