Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve, and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future, 2nd Edition [Paperback]

Liz Weston (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0132254581 | ISBN-13: 978-0132254588 | Publication Date: February 4, 2007 | Edition: 2nd

“A great credit score can help you finish rich! Liz Pulliam Weston gives solid, easy-to-understand advice about how to improve your credit fast. Read this book and prosper.”

 

–David Bach, bestselling author of The Automatic Millionaire and The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner

 

“Excellent book! Insightful, well written, and surprisingly interesting. Liz Pulliam Weston has done an outstanding job demystifying an often intimidating and frustrating topic for the benefit of all consumers.”

 

–Eric Tyson, syndicated columnist and bestselling author of

Personal Finance for Dummies

 

“No one makes complex financial information easy to understand like Liz Pulliam Weston. Her straight-talk and wise advice are invaluable to anyone with a credit card or check book–and that's just about all of us.”

 

–Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D., author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office and Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich

 

“In a country where consumers increasingly pay more when they have bad credit, Liz Pulliam Weston’s book provides excellent tips and advice on ways to improve your credit history and raise your credit score. If you just apply one or two of her insightful suggestions, you’ll save many times the cost of this book.”

 

–Ilyce R. Glink, financial reporter, talk show host, and bestselling author of

100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask

 

“Your credit score can save you money or cost you money–sometimes a lot of money. Yet, most people don’t even know their scores, much less know how to make them better. Liz Pulliam Weston can help you fix that. In this easy-to-understand guide you’ll learn how to make sure your score helps you get the best deal on loans and insurance. You can’t afford not to read it.”

 

–Gerri Detweiler, consumer advocate and founder of UltimateCredit.com

 

Your credit score. It’s just three numbers. But it dictates whether you’ll get credit, and what you’ll pay. Insurers use it to set premiums. Landlords use it to make renting decisions. You need to understand it. In Your Credit Score, Second Edition, MSN Money personal finance journalist Liz Pulliam Weston gives you up-to-the-minute answers you can trust—and a proven action plan for building your credit, fixing it, and maintaining it, starting today!

 

Weston has updated this national bestseller with extensive new information, including an inside look at the new VantageScore credit scoring system, “Fast Fixes” that actually work, and powerful tips for first-time borrowers.

 

You’ll discover how your scores are affected by everything from applying for loans to closing accounts...how to cope with a credit crisis, and bounce back from bad credit or bankruptcy...how credit counseling really affects your score...why paying old debts can actually damage your score...how to reduce your exposure to identity theft, and much more!

 

Acknowledgments  xvii

About the Author  xix

 

Chapter 1: Why Your Credit Score Matters  1

Chapter 2: How Credit Scoring Works  13

Chapter 3: VantageScore–A Revolution or Just More of the Same?  29

Chapter 4: Improving Your Score–The Right Way  37

Chapter 5: Credit Scoring Myths  57

Chapter 6: Coping with a Credit Crisis  69

Chapter 7: Rebuilding Your Score After a Credit Disaster  89

Chapter 8: Identity Theft and Your Credit  111

Chapter 9: Emergency! Fixing Your Credit Score Fast  139

Chapter 10: Insurance and Your Credit Score  147

Chapter 11: Keeping Your Score Healthy  163

 

Index  179

 

 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A great credit score can help you finish rich! Liz Pulliam Weston gives solid, easy-to-understand advice about how to improve your credit fast. Read this book and prosper.”  --David Bach, bestselling author of The Automatic Millionaire and The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner

From the Back Cover

"Excellent book! Insightful, well written, and surprisingly interesting! Liz Pulliam Weston has done an outstanding job demystifying an often intimidating and frustrating topic for the benefit of all consumers."

–Eric Tyson, syndicated columnist and best-selling author of Personal Finance for Dummies

"In a country where consumers increasingly pay more when they have bad credit, Liz Pulliam Weston's book provides excellent tips and advice on ways to improve your credit history and raise your credit score. If you just apply one or two of her insightful suggestions, you'll save many times the cost of this book."

–Ilyce R. Glink, financial reporter, talk show host, and best-selling author of 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask

"Your credit score can save you money or cost you money–sometimes a lot of money. Yet, most people don't even know their scores, much less know how to make them better. Liz Pulliam Weston can help you fix that. In this easy-to-understand guide you'll learn how to make sure your score helps you get the best deal on loans and insurance. You can't afford not to read it."

–Gerri Detweiler, consumer advocate and founder of UltimateCredit.com

A complete action plan for improving your credit score–starting today!

Information that could save you thousands on credit and insurance... even help you get your next job!

Explains the rules, explodes the myths!

Up-to-the-minute information on today's radically new credit scoring system from MSN/L.A. Times personal finance journalist Liz Pulliam Weston.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: FT Press; 2nd edition (February 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132254581
• ISBN-13: 978-0132254588
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #640,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Liz Pulliam Weston is the most-read personal finance columnist on the Internet, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. She's also an award-winning, nationally-syndicated personal finance columnist who can make the most complex money topics understandable to the average reader.

Her first book, "Your Credit Score," is the best-selling book on credit scoring and was recently published in a third edition (February 2009). Her second book, "Deal with Your Debt: The Right Way to Manage Your Bills and Pay Off What You Owe," was published by Pearson Prentice Hall in 2005. Her third book, December 2007, is "Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life." She also was a contributor to "The Experts' Guide to the Baby Years" (2006).

Liz's columns run twice a week on MSN Money, which reaches more than 12 million readers each month. Millions more read her question-and-answer column 'Money Talk,' which appears in newspapers throughout the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Palm Beach Post, the Portland Oregonian, Stars & Stripes and others.

Liz has appeared on "The Dr. Phil Show," "The Today Show" and "CBS Evening News with Brian Williams" and is frequently featured on American Public Media's "Marketplace Money" and NPR's 'Talk of the Nation' and "All Things Considered." She was for several years a weekly commentator on CNBC's "Power Lunch."

Weston is a graduate of the certified financial planner training program at University of California, Irvine. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. She can be reached via her Web site, AskLizWeston.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad info - look to other books for real help., April 1, 2006

By 

Eric William (Michigan) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve, and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Controls Your Financial Future (Paperback)

This book only restates what the creedit industry wants you to know. It does NOT give you the truth about many aspects of the credit industry that you need to know.

I am not a lawyer, but I have won cases against the three credit reporting agencies. They paid me over $7,000, and it only required $100 of fees on my part. To do this I needed GOOD information -- which I did not get from this book.

The author Liz Pulliam Weston did not do any hard-nosed investigation to write this book. She has taken the credit industry PR, which is NOT an unbiased source.

Most other books start with what Weston provides, and then gives you the other story. What people really need to know about your credit score, how it can be harmed, and how you can get the reporting agancies to fix errors.

With all due respect, please do not buy this book. Look further. There are BETTER books. I suggest you look at the ones written by Privacy Times (a great unbiased book) or any book on credit written by a laywer (there are many on Amazon).

92 of 104 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just about everything you need to know, April 23, 2005

By 

Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve, and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Controls Your Financial Future (Paperback)

L.A. Times and MSN Money columnist Liz Pulliam Weston knows money and she knows credit, and in this information-packed, no-nonsense book she gives you just about everything you need to know about that "open sesame," that shibboleth of numbers, that Holy Grail of liquidity--your credit score!

First, what is your credit score and why is it important? It's a three digit number ranging from 150 to 950 (p. 16) that creditors use to determine whether you are a good risk. If it is low, they won't lend you any money, meaning you can't buy a car or a boat or a house unless you pay cash; and if it is somewhere in the middle, you'll pay higher interest rates than those with a higher score.

Second, how can you find out what your score is? As Weston explains there are three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion that calculate "real" credit scores (either FICO or NextGen). You can contact them over the Net or by phone (Weston gives addresses and phone numbers), but here's the rub:

"Congress recently did give US residents the right to get free copies of their credit REPORTS annually from each of the three bureaus. But that doesn't include the right to free SCORES; the bureaus can and will continue to charge for those." (p. 25, my emphasis) The point here is that you can get your credit report for free, but they won't tell you the score!

So I checked out some Web sites and found out that they wanted me to sign up for their credit monitoring services after which I would get my score, or I could get the score by itself for a flat fee. Since I found out my score a couple of years ago when I refinanced my house, I declined the offer. One thing I didn't like was having to give out my Social Security number to get the score. As Weston advises, under the heading of "Get Stingy with Your Social Security Number" (p. 108), you should "...keep your number to yourself. If the business insists that it needs the number, you can either do business with someone else or 'misremember' a digit or nine to protect your privacy." Hmm. Never thought of that.

However the credit bureaus mentioned above are presumably safe, and at any rate for most people there is no other way to get your score. (And of course, "misremembering" won't work in this case.)

Third, what information goes into making up your score and how can you improve it? And finally how can you repair damage done to your credit and lift your score high enough to get credit and good interest rates?

Weston goes into detail answering these questions. She relies on the experience of people who have been there and done that, and upon her personal experience as well as information culled from the many letters and emails she gets from readers. She makes "what makes for" good credit scores crystal clear.

By the by, it is interesting to note, as Weston does in Chapter 9, "Insurance and Your Credit Score," that bad credit can affect what you pay for insurance as well as what you pay for credit. She writes, "Insurers...believe credit is an excellent predictor of whether you'll file a claim--better, in fact, than almost any other factor, including your previous driving history." (p. 130) So what we have are credit-based insurance scores for all kinds of insurance, auto, home, health, etc. What insurers have discovered is that there is a strong correlation between low credit scores and high risk (for them). Although correlation is not causality, and does not in a scientific sense constitute proof, the insurance companies will tell you that they make money from those with high credit scores and lose money (through claims) from those with low credit scores. Weston even has some stats on pages 132-133 attesting to this fact.

Why the correlation? I think most people would say (and Weston makes this most reasonable surmise) that people who are careless with their money are likely to be careless in other aspects of their lives as well.

One more thing: you can get a fair idea of how credit worthy the credit people think you are by the amount of junk mail you receive offering to lend you money! I have a pretty good score and I must get fifty to a hundred offers a year. And of course I have no need to borrow; but isn't it always the case: those who least need credit are the ones who can most easily get it, and those who need it the most are the ones least likely to get it! Life is an eternal Catch-22.

By the way, another annoying Catch-22 of the corporate world is revealed by Weston as she quotes "Glen" whose insurance costs increased because his wife max'ed out her GAP card. He calls a number and is told that his credit is scored "according to how the insurance company wants" it to be scored. He is then told that the insurance company "can't discuss the criteria [because] it's proprietary"! Ah, yes, the old proprietary dodge.

Anyway, in this age of identify theft and other kinds of information fraud, this book belongs on the syllabus for Personal Finance 101, an ongoing, real-world, absolutely required course for all of us living in the postmodern age.

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Guide to Cleaning Up Credit Problems, February 2, 2006

By 

Jeffrey Compton "Jeffrey Compton" (Forest Hills, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve, and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Controls Your Financial Future (Paperback)

I picked up this book at the Airport, read it on the plane and then immediately ran my FICO - which was a very sorry 521! Using Weston's advice I was able to get to a much more respectable 680 and rising (over a nine-month period)! For the price, it is a much better guide than those kits (including Suzy's) offered on the Internet.