Agnostic.com

3 4

Did you know that your credit score may well be a victim of the state you live in? Turns out the average credit score by state varies by over 60 !!!
[forbes.com]

Lizard_of_Ahaz 9 Feb 17
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

3 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

2

Keep you credit score higher by actively having a monthly bill of some sort going to your credit cards. This gets paid automatically and the AI simply reports the outcome. This is one of the things I do.

As long as none of your payments are late that is the most important factor and it helps to have longer credit activity with a few types of loans (car, home, credit cards, and a small personal loan are a good mix) your score will be very high. I keep my credit cards paid down to under 1% at the end of each reporting period which makes the credit agencies very happy with me.

@Lizard_of_Ahaz Mine are paid automatically through my online banking setup. I put my taxes on one card and something else on the other. Once a year I switch cards and the AI does not know much here except that I am never late. Personal expenses come out of my Visa debit and I have auto pay on my other bills.

@DenoPenno What is your average balance on those cards by percentage each month?... That factor accounts for 30% of your credit score and if over 30% puts you in a high risk category.

@Lizard_of_Ahaz I put my taxes on one card and take most od the year to pay it off in payments. Interest is high because I let them decide the monthly payments. I think they like that.

@DenoPenno I just paid my earthquake insurance policy with my discover card and even though it is zero interest right now I still paid the card down to less than 1% and got 1% cash back for using the card. Credit card companies love people who keep a higher balance unless you are applying for a new card then you get denied because your credit score is low. I use the cards for living expenses and then pay off before the end of the cycle to get a higher score, avoid the high interest and earn interest on my savings (low right now admittedly saving is 0.5% and checking is 0.1%) but instead of losing money I gain using their money and my FICO is 780.

2

It is used to control your behavior period?

You can add 15 to 45 points by just joining one credit agencies monthly paid membership!

Just another way of sucking money from you and your pocketbook!!!

I used old school methods and 8 years ago when I was finally in a position to start working on my credit I was at 356 on the Vantage 3.0 scale but at present I am at 735 on that scale and had a 789 FICO until the new loans and refinance were reported. I am waiting to see what the new FICO will be tomorrow if I am right it should have dropped 20 to 23 points and by December should be a bit higher than before. There are also free tools you can use (Experian Boost is one of those) but as of this date I haven't had a need for them.

2

Good to know! Thanks for posting this!

No problem it seems that average credit scores can be brought down by a combination of low wages and lack of a social safety net. Texas has big problems in that area but the worst in the nation is Mississippi. Keep in mind this was before COVID so people are going to be taking a huge hit in states that the safety net is lacking and even with ones with a better social climate will be hard hit.

@Lizard_of_Ahaz Of course Texas, where I live! Good to know there's worse but still it's not good!

@MichelleGar1 Keep in mind that article was written before September 2020 using information that was outdated even then but as I understand it most of the red states have gotten worse lately while others have improved. it also uses the Vantage 3.0 scoring instead of FICO8 which is the industry standard so the scores will average a bit higher using the vantage model. Tomorrow I will get my Equafax FICO and the 22nd I will get my Transunion and find out just how much of a hit I took last month from my refinance and two other new accounts but I should still be well over 735...
Hoping it goes up a bit by the end of the year my goal is 800 FICO.

@Lizard_of_Ahaz That's right, this article is from 2020, so it should be different. I hope you have a good score! I just got a car back in November so my score was okay.

@MichelleGar1 The banks and finance companies loosen credit requirements in states like yours but the problem with that is you get screwed on the interest rates. Right now if I went to finance a car my rate through my credit union would be 1.49%. Someone with the same FICO as mine would likely have to pay around 4% in Texas to compensate for the higher average risk .
Unfortunately that also does harm to the economy in that state by putting loans out of reach of many of the people there or even placing them in a position where they are in higher risk of default if they do incur unexpected expenses like medical bills.

@Lizard_of_Ahaz I know about that finance charge! Makes it longer to pay off too!

@MichelleGar1 Yeah my son in law had to take a loan at almost 10% for 7 years to get a car loan and is paying 258.00 a month. If he had listened to me I could have got him a 60 month loan at my credit union with a 2.5% interest rate but he didn't want to start an account there. Hopefully he will start listening soon but he has been doing well on his payments and his score is better than it was.

@Lizard_of_Ahaz The payment is good, but yeah for 7 years, that's a long time!

@MichelleGar1 Fucking school loans .... What can I say .

@Lizard_of_Ahaz That's a whole subject within itself!

@MichelleGar1 Well I got my FICO today from the credit union and my Equafax score is 780!...

@Lizard_of_Ahaz That's a very good score!

You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:651272
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.