Consumer credit makes the world go-round. Fair Issac Corporation founded this thing called FICO that we all have come to know and love (or hate!) It’s basically a score derived from variables off an individual’s credit report that measures their credit risk. A FICO score can range from 300 to 850, although someone with a perfect 850 is most likely a Unicorn!
Your FICO score directly determines the interest charges on a loan you take out. Improving your FICO will save you money on that loan by lowering the interest rate a lender will charge. Just a 40 to 60 point improvement in FICO can improve the interest rate you pay on a loan by over 4%. That means, on a 4 year, $10,000 loan, you could save approximately $1,100 in interest charges! Calculate for yourself. Go to myfico.com and try their cool loan savings calculator.
You would be surprised at the number of items on your credit report you can contest and have removed or changed. While some of these can be handled by you with some online research, phone calls, and trial and error, there are experts who do this for a living and know how to identify the likely negative issues, create a case for it and then challenge the credit bureaus to have them fixed.
~ David Weyher