Dealing with Credit Reports

Someone I know recently wanted to know how to check their credit report. Rightfully scared of all of the potential scams related to getting credit reports they asked me how I would do it. I dug up this article from Kiplinger's to help answer their question.

The article details one person's fight to get a bad mark off of their credit record. Most importantly it shows how to get your free copy of your credit report.

You can get a free copy of your credit reports at the three major credit bureaus -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- once a year at AnnualCreditReport.com. You can also get a free report if you've been denied credit based on information in your report.

Start at the source. As long as the credit bureaus comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and verify that they're correctly reporting the information they received from a lender, they consider their job to be done. So your first call should be to the lender. When you have enough information from the lender to correct the mistake, start your challenge.

As always see my disclaimer.

Stand Pat or Sale

I have seen and heard a number of Finance industry pundits recently answering the question of should investors "hold or sale." They normally go through the typical discussion of the investors time horizon and chance the stock prices will recover, etc.

What I find remarkable is that not one of these discussions has suggested the investor consider the quality of the companies in which the investor owns stock. At a bare minimum you should consider whether the companies you invested in are close to bankruptcy or not. If you have invested in highly leveraged industries, banking, automotive you really need to ask yourself if this company going to survive the down turn to participate in the recovery.

Just a few years ago leverage (borrowing money) was a way of producing killer profits, but when credit is hard to come by, that debt can kill the company. As always see my disclaimer, and if you are confused seek professional advice on your individual situation.