Increasing your Credit Score Webinar

all right sorry I had to work out the recording um this webinar is being recorded just so that everyone is aware um hello and welcome to our webinar entitled increasing your credit score this is brought to you by northwest's Financial Wellness series my name is Denise kitchen your host and I am one of the relationship managers for the company partnership program our department manages the Partnerships the credit union has with organizations so that they can offer credit membership as part of their benefits package to their employees members and volunteers so first off again thank you so much for logging in and for your interest in our webinar today we really appreciate that um secondly I'd like to go over some housekeeping items um everyone is muted due to the number of participants and we ask that you hold your questions until the end of the presentation so after Amy is done and then ask them via the chat feature which you will find on the bottom right of your screen uh for any questions question that we don't get to address during the Q&A um I will put my email address on the screen after everything and you can feel free to email me and I will get the answers for you all right I proud of myself in being very responsive so please um feel free to email me and let me know what your questions are also um at the very end so please please please make sure that you stay tuned until after the Q&A s session we will do a um raffle for a $25 Visa gift card so please stay tuned once again until the very end of our session today and now without further Ado I would like to introduce um Amy Cardona my friend of Equifax um Amy please go ahead and take us away thank you Denise I really appreciate being included today and you know able to help with this I know credit scores are a really big deal to everybody so I want to make sure everyone is comfortable with this as they go forward um so first thing is we're just going to go over the basics of what a credit score is it's it's a number that's related to your credit history in general if your score is high it's considered good if it's low it's bad the data on your credit file is what feeds the score the score cannot be calculated on its own it takes a credit file to create it so the key to improving your credit score is just monitor your credit file because if you're doing what you're supposed to do and we'll we'll go over what that really means um the score will go up so it's it's it it all comes from your actual credit file itself now um how it works is that each lender reports data to different credit bureaus there's three main ones which are Experian Transunion and Equifax I work with Equifax um so each of us has a different it's it's all based on either FICO or Vantage score normally are the two big ones um we'll talk more about those later but the lenders report to whichever bureaus they they choose to they're not legally recorded required to report to all three so a lot of lenders will report to one or two so that's why you might see differences between one score or a different one um the other thing to keep in mind is you can pull a credit file on your own um you can use annual creditreport.com you can get it through a variety of apps you can get it through um like Equifax you can go to the Equifax website and set up an account and you can review your credit report on a regular basis when you look at your own credit file it's a soft poll and you get to see everything on there there's extra details that are shared with you as the the owner of the credit file so for instance if I I'm I'm Type 1 diabetic I have been since I was little if I have a huge issue with my diabetes and I end up with a medical collection that's you know several thousand dollars I will see on my credit file the name of who the collection is with and the lenders will just see a truncated version they only see that it's a medical collection they don't know what it's related to they don't have that information they just see that there's a collection the dollar amount and that it's medical because the hipa that information is not shared with anyone other than you so don't assume that what you see on your credit file is exactly what lenders see because there are differences there um the other thing that you will see on your credit file when you pull it yourself is something called Soft polls so if you decide to go online to see what you qualify for and it says it won't hurt your FICO score or won't hurt your credit score um that's what we consider a soft poll those can be done for a variety of reasons whether it's free screens account review that type of thing you can see those soft Poes but lenders don't see them all it's only shown to you lenders can only see when you sign and give approval to have your credit file apph holded for an application um or if they're doing if they're doing an account review they're allowed to do a a soft poll but they can't they won't see it they won't see that that inquiry post only you will see it that's where the the difference is so it's not that they can't run them it's just that can't see it hit your your credit file um there are a variety of scores and we'll go through the list of them later um so when you apply for a loan with a credit union each Credit Union might use a slightly different score version and it could be that they're using a different Bureau or it could be that it's just a different model so there's there's a lot that goes on out there the range is generally from 300 which is the lowest it'll go to 850 um I say lowest that's for the base score model there's also industry specifics um when we look at the scores next and that range goes from 250 to 900 for loans at other than like specific ones like auto credit card most most lenders use the base score model rather than the industry specific so that 300 to 850 is the the general range that you should keep in mind when you do it if you pull it yourself you get you get that that base range now as I mentioned there are a variety of models so in each Bureau offer slightly different models so for Equifax we have FICO 5 FICO 8 FICO 9 FICO 10 10 also has FICO 10t which uses trended data now within each of those models I mentioned that that slightly different score range there's also FICO five Auto FICO 5 bank card FICO 5 mortgage 8 n and 10 have those same industry specifics so that's where the the the first set of versions the 89 58910 that's got the the 3850 the industry the auto bank card and mortgage those go 250 to 900 so there's a ton of information out there and you know you get your credit score but it's really key that when you look at something that gives you your credit score you look at the fine print to see which score model it is because it could be that you know the lender is using a different Bureau than what your app is using or where you pulled it it could be that they're using a different score model so anytime the score comes out it's based on the math problem that's behind the scenes and every time a new model comes out it's different they're looking for improvements they're looking for it to work better so the score is not going to be the exact same as what the previous one was and I I promise if you look at FICO 5 versus FICO 10 those are night and day but there were decades between the two coming out so that that has a huge impact um Insight score is a score that that there's a few different scores that Equifax has come out to try to help with different things for example I've got um there's an Insight score for auto that some Auto Lenders instead of using FICO they're just using that score um there's also an Insight score for personal loans there's one for um bank card to help with opening bank accounts Vantage score is the most common one that you would have heard of aside from FICO if you look at an app and it says your credit score is and it gives a number that's in that 300 to 850 range it's normally Vantage score it is being seen more and more now um and it it's just come a long way since it's come out it was created by the three credit bureaus together um the last piece is it mentions ignite configurable scores that's not as commonly used I just put that on there so that people know lenders can make their own score so even if you have an app or you have information that you know what your current FICO score is if the lender that you're applying with uses their own score that they created themselves there's no way FICO or Vantage even is going to match it so it's really important that when you apply for loans you talk to that lender to find out which FICO model they're using or which Vantage model they're using so that way you know that when you look at your app or you look at your information you're looking you're matching kind of up what they're doing the key though is that the credit file Feats a score so it doesn't matter what the math problem is behind the scenes as long as the information on your credit file is correct the score is going to be correct now there are AR ranges like I said 300 to 850 is is the broad 300 to 579 is generally seen as Poor 500 to 669 is fair so as you go up it gets better and better that might not seem like a big deal but what happens is lenders use something called risk-based pricing and I'm not going to go into a ton of detail on that but the less risky you are the better rates you get so if if I've got or actually better if Denise has a credit score of like 825 she's going to get the best rate that the the lender has to offer so Northwest will give her a great deal even if she doesn't work there and then they'll also give her a higher dollar amount because she's not risky she's in that exceptional range of$ 8850 if my score is somewhere like around 680 I'm in that good range so I'm in that 679 to 730 so so I'll get I'll still get the loan most likely not definitely because it depends on where I am in that range but I have a better chance of getting a loan than um maybe someone down in the three or 400s but my rate will be higher which means I'll pay more for each monthly payment even if if we both get a $5,000 loan my monthly payments will be higher than hers because I'm riskier than she is because my score is lower I'm more likely to not make the payment um if I'm even lower than that if I'm in that 350 to 400 you know in that 300 to 579 range I'm most likely not going to get the loan and honestly the 580 is 669 that tends to be a little bit riskier as well so I can't I I don't know what North Quest Credit tiers are or how they what they approve what they don't approve when you're applying for a loan it's important for you to review your score ahead of time review your credit file make everything's correct and then if you if you're a member of Northwest they have a financial coaching team talk to them have them look at you because they can do a soft poll and look at your score see where you stand or you can show them what you have and they can either work through what they think you might qualify for or make recommendations on what you should do to get your score up before you apply for a loan that way it makes it a better process overall whether it's trying to buy a house trying to buy a car whatever it is you're looking to do it's important you do the work on the front end to make it a better experience at through the loan process um like I said the credit file feeds the score absolute end of story the data on there is is gets is is what makes the score happen so it's really important that you pay attention to what's on there because you can see what delinquencies are on there you can see if things are on there that shouldn't be on there sometimes you know mistakes happen so or fraud could have happened you know if my identity got stolen and all of a sudden I've got charge cards that have thousands of dollars on them that I've never paid because I don't know I didn't apply for them I can I can dispute those and say it's not really me but I I don't know it's not mine unless I look at it right so it's it's really important that you actually monitor and pay attention to that and if you see something wrong you can go to um each credit bureau and and put what they call a dispute in to say this this wasn't me I didn't apply for it and they'll work work with that lender to get that corrected and if they you know if you're able to prove it really isn't you it'll get taken off your credit file as if it was never there so you won't be held accountable for that debt or for any delinquency anything related to it now why what's the big deal you know I keep talking about credit score and what's the big deal about getting it up you know as high a level as possible the reality is anytime you apply for a loan they look at your credit score now there's different credit scores they might look at but the reality is a score is going to be used in some way so you need good credit to get a car loan a home loan even sometimes jobs if you apply to work at a you know if Northwest was hiring you applied to work for them there's a good chance they would do what's called a soft pole so it doesn't hurt your FICO score but they want to be make sure that you're responsible with your money before they trust you with their members money because otherwise it increases the chance of internal fraud so that's where employment can also be impacted by your credit score and and what's on your credit file um I mentioned before that the higher your score the better interest rate is so you know if if Denise buys a car that's $50,000 and has a high credit score she's going to get a more more affordable payment each month so it'll be easier for her to get that $50,000 car if my score is low my payment will be more because my interest rate is higher so in the long run I'm going to pay pay more each month I'm going to pay more in the long run but again it's because I'm a higher risk so the less risky you show yourself to be if you if you make your payments on time and do what you're supposed to do the better terms that you get throughout the life of the loan and it's not just a credit union thing this is done across all lenders they all use the scores to determine how how reliable you will be on making your payments so it's important that you do your due diligence to take care of your credit history and if you hit a bump it's okay we'll talk about it later how to get through that um it it gets better if you improve over time so they you can talk through that piece that youve made changes or you got a new job or whatever it is that that you know hit the bump in the road for you now there are five main things that FICO looks at when they um when the score model comes out your payment history and and um do you pay your bills on time that's 35% of your score and then how much do you owe especially on credit card so if your credit limits $5,000 and you're at 5,000 it's maxed out all the time that those two together are 65% of your score it's over half of your score determines by whether you pay your bills on time and and how much debt you have under you now um your credit history is so how long have you had credit is 15% of your score it's not your age it's how long the age of the oldest trade line or the oldest count on your credit file great example is is me when I was in college my dad had a I think it was an American Express card and it was cheaper for me to fly I want to say it was Continental but to when I flew to Florida where I was going to college I used his American Express card well rather than me have to you know fly and charge on something under his name he put me on as an authorized user because I was an authorized user on his credit card it appeared as an account on my credit file so my age of my credit file my credit history was older than I was so that's where if you have children it's and you've got a credit card that you've taken care of for a long time a really easy way to help them build their credit score is to add them as an authorized user the thing to keep in mind is that um lenders know that you have access to the card but no financial responsibility so you need to balance those authorized user accounts with other accounts but again we'll we'll talk about that more later the new credit piece anytime you apply for you so you sign and give permission to apply for a loan a credit card house whatever it is you're trying to buy it that that application has a 10% impact it's not 10% of your score so if I have an 8 825 I'm not going to get hit by 82 points it's just 10% of the math problem basically and then the type of credit is 10% of the score that means they want to see a variety of of credit Types on there they want to see that you have a mortgage they want to see that you have an auto loan they want to or installment loan doesn't have to be Auto any kind of installment loan um they want to see that you have revolving or credit card accounts the reality is that as how you handle each one varies um if I have an auto loan and I pay the minimum payment on it for each month if it's a fiveyear auto loan I'm going to pay it off in five years if I have a credit card and I pay the minimum balance for zero for for five years I'm never going to pay it off so it it's each type of a a loan or credit is handled differently so they want to see that you can handle all of them to have a high score I did see a question about whether it's good to close out zerob balance accounts um it depends on on the card if you have used it responsibly and you've been good with it for years and so it's it's seen as a positive account because you've never been delinquent on it it keeps that time that length of credit history on your file so that it keeps it as a positive the thing to keep in mind is that you have to use it though if I don't if you know if I've got a credit card that I got when I was in college if I buy pizza with it once a month or I get gas with it you know once a month I'll charge it pay it off that night because the interest rate might not be great but at least it's used so it'll update my credit file to show it's still being used that way the credit card issuer doesn't cut it off and it still hit is counting towards my credit my credit score if you're not using it you have no interest in ever using again like especially like retail cards like a home Depot lows something like that coals if you're not going to use it go ahead and and shut it down because it looks better if you close the credit card as opposed to the lender closing it because if the lender shuts the card down on you it looks like you got yourself in trouble even if it's just that it was a zero balance and unused for a certain period of time now know everyone's here today to find out how to improve their credit the key is that it takes time it's it's not something you can you know snap your fingers and fix um paying everything off does not fix your credit score it'll the delinquency will still be on there and it can still cause other issues the true key to improving your credit is pay your bills by the due date and and try to keep your credit balances low so if you can you know if your credit cards we all have rough months or times that things hit that you have to use a credit card to like cover whatever unplanned expense so if I max out my credit card this month the most important to fix my for is for me to pay it down over time and to do my diligence to get it back down to where it's at a what they consider a reasonable level um so that's why I just you know lower the amount that you owe especially on credit cards so pay those down get them to usually some people say 50% of your max most lenders now say 30% so watch what that credit limit is and try to keep the actual balance down the other thing to keep in mind is that the day your payment is due is not necessarily the day that they report so credit cards report and and most lenders report once a month excuse me so if my payment is due on June 15th and I have a credit card with Northwest but they report today on the 12th that payment's not last month's payment will be reflected today this month's payment will be reflected next month because I missed that date so if I know there's a couple days if I watch my credit file and see you know that the the payment I just made is being Miss a couple days if I back it up and I pay Northwest on the 11th all of a sudden that monthly payment goes through the same time as their reporting does so it a I don't I'm not ever late because I'm paying ahead of the the due date but B it hits before the reporting does show it shows a lower balance when my credit files pulled you don't have to monitor your credit to find that out you can ask your lender so if you work with Northwest you know reach out toise ask them what day of the month does Northwest report so if if she says report on the 5ifth and you make get paid on the first go ahead and make the payment on the first that way it's done so it's ahead it's it's easy just as long as it's before the 5th that payment will reflect in this month's credit file reporting which makes your score go up a little bit faster because that that debt levels down a little bit the other piece is don't get new credit cards if you don't need them because every time you apply for a credit card your score goes down by that 10% we talked about if you're shopping for auto loans and mortgages that's a little bit different you have 30 days to shop so you can have as many inquiries between those two as poss as you need to to get the right loan you want lenders expect you to shop for those you want a good rate a mortgage is a huge long-term loan it's a big commitment it's a lot of money in auto loans just based on the way the auto market Works your credit file gets pulled several times with each Auto application but the key is to keep yourself within that 30-day shopping window for those too credit cards every time you apply it hits your score so if you don't need it don't apply for it it's not going to help you by having just to have the card that you're not using so only get what you need from a credit card perspective now I know the question came up earlier don't necessarily close older cards it because that longer time it'll help your credit rating but if it's a card that you will never again use it's better for you to close it rather than have the lender close it so just kind of I know it's kind of a mixed message coming out um but if it's it's like a Visa or Mastercard something you can use on just daily purchases then it's usually a good idea to keep it open just use it periodically and but pay it quickly so that way it shows that you're using it if it's a department store card that you're not really going to use and they're going to shut it down anyways then go ahead and and be the one to proactively close it now after you've done these things for a while so youve you've paid you know paid everything on time you try to get ahead of your your credit limit on your credit cards give it 69 months and then recheck your score you should see an increase it'll be better and and when you check you get the free reports from each Bureau check each Bureau don't just pick one and check that one because if Northwest works with me through Equifax you may go down the street to another lender which Den they would never do they're just going to go with Northwest but they could someone else could pull TransUnion or they could pull Experian so you want to make sure all three bureaus that the the data is correct and that it's clean now the other thing you can do is if something happens I mean we all learned this during Co it was it was a really rough time the rules learn back then don't change so if you're having issues call the lenders that you're working with um i' I've had to do it in the past and and it is humbling but they want to work with you they don't want to shut the loan down they don't want they don't want to get you in trouble so I know a lot of the credit edans that I work with they offer skip pay options so if something happens this month you know couple years ago I had knee surgery so if I'm having knee surgery and I'm out of work for three weeks I can let Northwest know that and and maybe they'll give me a skip pay so that the month that I have no income coming in because of surgery then the next month my payments resume as normal so but so call them so you can talk through those options I can't guarantee every lender is going to offer a skip pay option they're going to offer certain things but they don't know unless you call them and if you just don't pay you're going to end up in in a collection situation where they're going to be reporting negatively to the credit bureaus and the collection team will start calling you asking you about payments um the other thing is if you don't want to just totally skip a month you can ask them just to reduce the payment amount because maybe it's easier for me to reduce my payment amount for all of my loans versus just skipping one or two um if you're renting they you can't do that unfortunately but but for other types of debt loans and credit cards a lot of times if you work with the lender they'll they'll do what they can to make it easy they want you to pay they want you to be a member or customer of theirs so just be honest with them and give them a chance to work through things with you now that there are some quick options to increase your credit score now um last year something came out in the from the government any medical collections that were less than $500 had to be completely taken off the credit file so those are gone if you owe a doctor $50 from a copay two years ago that collection should no longer be on your credit file if it is still on your credit file then dispute it because legally it should not be there if it's over $500 it will still be on your credit file reach out to them and and either negotiate a payment plan see if they can write some of it off because I know a lot of the hospitals that I work with they have income driven payment plans so if you show you make a certain amount of money and I don't know what the exact ranges are but you can apply for basically like a charity option and sometimes they'll write off part of the amount that you owe so it reduces that collection and if it drops below 500 it's gone off your credit file but the key is if you can pay it off so they reduce part you pay whatever is left what happens with medical collections now is that they report it one more time as paid in full and then it disappears from your credit files if it was never there normally bad information or delinquent information they'll stay on your credit file for seven years so that seven years impacts your payment history for that seven so you know I'm laid on the loan once for seven years that's going to hurt me from a payment history perspective collection are part of that payment history it's it's shown as a big derogatory so it has a really negative effect on your your credit score so if I take care of that medical collection all the s I'm back scores can jump 20 30 points just from getting medical colle if they a big amount taken off um so that's a very great thing that the government has done for us in the past year or so to try to make things better for consumers now the other thing is if if you've got a credit card and you've done well with it you've taken care of it you've paid it on time you've kept the balance low you can either call them um I know my credit card I can go in the app and I can ask for an increase in credit limit usually that St as a soft poll so it doesn't hurt my credit score and what happens is if I go say from a $3,000 credit limit to a $5,000 credit limit the amount I owe still stays the same but my utilization goes down so if I've got $1,000 on it on the card to start with instead of it being a 30% utilization all of a sudden I'm down to 20 or 10 you know so it it just it it makes it a lot better um and so by having that utilization down it increases your score now the other thing is if if you can't get a credit card if you're if you're either starting credit for the first time um I've got a a dear friend of mine who just came to this country from Morocco she had no credit score she had no credit report because it doesn't exist in that country um so when she got her first account it was a secured credit card so what she did was she reached out to a local credit union and she gave them cash so she gave them like $500 they gave her a credit card that had a $500 limit so then she would use the card to buy things or do whatever and then she would just refill the card it's almost like a gift card but the difference is because it's a secured credit card it counts as an a trade line it counts as a an account on your credit file and and I apologize I keep using the term trade line a trade line is nothing more than an account on your credit file so if you you buy Visa gift cards instead see if you can get a secured credit card and use it the same way because that would improve your credit as you put money back on the card you can you can use it you can improve your credit score because it shows that you're paying your bill as agreed you're being responsible with a credit card and so that can help build the credit history and it's not money that you're having to pay back after the fact it's money that you're basically putting it up front when you plan uh to travel or you know when you're planning to do anything so like if I'm going overseas it might be good for me to get a secured card because if the card gets stolen I'm limited in in what I'm going to owe from a liability standpoint you know my son is 20 years old I recommended to him to to apply for a secured card actually with Northwest because they've got a great program um but it's an easy way for people to start credit history when they don't have it and and you can adjust how much you put as that down payment so if you don't have $500 see if you can do 250 if you have more you can put $1,000 and so that way your credit limit increases based on the amount that you pre-load on the card to to help as you go now once you get the card use it a few times each month only buy items that you can afford to pay and pay it off in full is is the best way to do things um especially if it's a secured card because you're going to have to if I put $500 down to the secured card as I work that prepaid balance down to zero can't use the card anymore so it doesn't really help me anymore so then I'd have to put another $500 it's much better for me to do $50 and then put another $50 in when I you know when I get my next paycheck or however it works um so use them responsibly but use them for items that you've already budgeted to buy and that way it it just makes life easier so you're not using it to go on a spending spree you're using it within your budgeted items so that way it keeps your limit down um and just makes life better now the other piece is and it's you know like I said 65% is your payment history and um do you pay on time do do you pay on time in your balances how much you use it so pay by your due date please even if you're off by two days what happens is if if my payment's due today and I pay it tomorrow unless there's some sort of grace period with the credit card it's going to assess a fee and even if there is a period sometimes the fee hits well then what happens is instead of me owing $500 that was my previous credit limit now it's $550 or 525 whatever that late fee is and I didn't even get anything out of it all I did was pay late so pay the the soonest you can before the bill date when you set the card up from day one work with the lender to to see if they can give you a pay date that works with you I I've scheduled all of my when I set up credit card and even auto loans when I apply for loans when I my um kids got cars I ask the lender to try to schedule around my payroll dates because we get paid twice a month I knew exactly when that paycheck was coming in so then I just put it on auto deposit or auto payment so from you know my paycheck comes into my credit union and then the money immediately goes to the car loan so it's taken care of if you can't do something like that where it auto pays within the credit union itself you can use your phone you can use different like your digital calendars there's different Technologies you can use to set them up um reminders so that way you don't forget to log in and make the payment now over time just keep doing what we're talking about um you'll see a better credit history but it it does take time like I said before if you hit a bump in the road it's not great because your score is going to go down but the more you do the things we're talking about on this webinar over time you'll see the um you'll see this your score go back up and and like it's a great example my friend Sada who I told you came here from Morocco she had zero credit score she had no credit file nothing over the past year and a half she's worked and been very diligent about paying things on time and and being responsible with with her secured card she's got like a 745 now she told me the other day so her score has gone up to that level in just a year and a half by by being responsible I can't guarantee that's going to happen for everybody because she had no history and you might be coming out of a negative history but the farther you get out from the negative the less of an impact it has now um you've got a ton of resources with Northwest so Denise I don't know if you wanted to to talk about these or I think I talked too fast this time so I got to the slide too quickly um so actually now our partner is Green Path so we actually need to change this uh the slide out I didn't realize that was still in there um but we have information on Green Path and I will send that out um with the recording okay perfect and and the thing is so it talks about calculators please use the calculators those things are amazing um what the calculators are is if you say get an extra bonus at work or you get a gift because you graduate from high school college whatever if you have extra money you can put the calculator What if I take this $500 I got and I put it towards my car loan what will that do to my credit score okay that's not a great bonus well what if I put it towards my credit card so you can put it in and do different things to see what the potential impact would be to your credit score so if that $500 is best put towards your credit card it'll tell you to do you'll see that using the calculator if it's best put towards your auto loan you'll see that if if it's all about the same because you've been so diligent with taking care of everything then maybe you put the $500 in a CD and let the money grow for you over time so that way when you decide to buy your next car or you decide to buy your house instead of it being $500 it's grown over the six months or a year or whatever it is in that that market so the calculators are amazing and if you feel kind of lost when you're looking at the credit file the counselors they're they're so key they they're paid to help you and walk you through this so please take you know use of those resources because Northwest has a great team that does these and if you just go to their website it's got the list of all the different credit card options they they have there so you can kind of see if you pre-pull your score three in your creditreport.com or through I mean Credit Karma has got it I know my credit card has one there's so many different places you can get a score update um look at those and and see what makes the most sense when you're looking at the different credit card options before you apply so what questions does everyone have I know Denise said she had some in the chat so yeah so I'm still home I'm still copying them so if you guys want to pose them in the chat um believe I've caught up to here so let me stop it on my screen right there before I lose track of where I am so um we have a ton of questions so we're going to take a few um if we don't get to ask your question to Amy then please um like I said in the beginning just send me an email with that question um I will forward them all once I've collected them to Amy so she can see which ones she can answer maybe I can answer some together with Green Path Etc and some of our uh Branch folks uh but we're going to do our best today guys so um hang hang in there with us all right so the first question I have um was how might an eviction show up on your credit and is it possible to not have an eviction show up on your credit rep credit report I'm assuming that depends on the landlord and whether or not they reported um but I'm not sure how they show up Amy can you speak to that I so if it's if it's from a mortgage and you get evicted that'll show up as a foreclosure if you're renting it depends on whether the landlord is is reporting um and then it will you the the delinquency will show because in order for them to to to evict you you shouldn't have paid you couldn't have paid for a while so that delinquency will be on there the yet I don't know if it would go to like a charge off status but there's there's what they call there's codes when they report data to us so it says whether you're 30 days late 40 you know 60 days late 90 days late there may be a code for the eviction and that one I'm not sure of so if you can send that to me Denise I can look to see if there's an exact code okay but the key on that is whether the landlord reports data or not because if they don't it doesn't show right but there are the the one thing to keep in mind there are other reports that are outside the credit file where they can search for evictions so even if it's not on your credit report the landlord has other way other resources that they can pull to see if that eviction happened okay all right the next question was for me and specifically to Northwest so I will answer that separately Aria okay um then from Kelly how are you able to convert a secured credit card to a regular credit card and are you ever and the answer is no so we cannot convert a secured card to a regular credit card it's a separate application it's a completely separate process and product um so you can certainly always start out with a a secured card but then you'd have to reapply for a regular card um once you've increased your credit score with the security so that is that um and then we've got a couple questions here my question is how do I refute an old student loan payment delinquency to happen during the federal student loan payback um but it is showing on my score report so when you if you have a dispute you can either call the credit bureau that that it's on um and for student loans it's normally on all three so it's unfortunately you have to do it each one at a time because the the databases are separate the one thing you will only have to report once is fraud so let me just get that out there if your wallet's stolen your identity is is stolen anything like that happens you call one credit bureau we share that with each other loan information we don't share with each other so if you have a student loan something's wrong you can either call the credit bureau and dispute it verbally over the phone or you can go to the the website um and and dispute it through each credit bureau's website if you go Google it I know Equifax you just go to equifax.com and they've got a a section you just click dispute an error um I know I've used credit karma for a few years through Credit Karma I can dispute loans or issues through the the app itself it walks me through it so it just depends on what resources you're currently using if you pulled it through annual creditreport.com and saw it and saw it was wrong then you can just go to that bureau's website and do it's usually the easiest way okay and what I can also do for you guys is um I can basically include all the links to all the credy burs in my follow-up email to you just so that it makes it easy for you and you can just click on it um um Denise there's also a the FTC has a website that it talks about they have a b show that talks about disputing errors on your credit report yeah I have that one too okay yeah so I would yeah encourage you to send that as well to them because it's just a PDF that can be emailed over and it walks them through step byep how to handle it okay I can include that and then I was also I'm going to um include the annual credit report so perfect do all of that so you guys have all that handy um next question um how do our a missed mortgage payment because of an error in electronic automatic payment again it's best to contact UM your lender to hopefully reason with them um and if you can't then go to the credit beers with that your advice to Amy yeah so anytime you dispute anything I'd encourage you to call the lender that way they know the disputes coming in um it's just fastest for them to address it through the dispute process but if something was wrong and you submitted the payment late then it's it's a matter of of talking to that lender directly to talk through if it was an issue with their system to get them to acknowledge that it was their their problem that kept you from paying instead of you not trying to pay so that's where the discussion with the the the owner of the loan would would make the most sense yeah okay then question from Janet can you explain why um when you pay off a large amount or the whole thing on a credit card you have a small increase to your score but when your amount of debt goes up on a card it's a big drop in your score because it's more about the percentage so if to to me what might feel like a a big payment might not look like a big payment depending on how many credit cards I have so if I've got two credit cards and the limit on both is and I'm just going to use $5,000 because that's an easy round number if I pay $1,000 off I still have $99,000 in debt if they're both maxed out so to me it feels like I've done a lot but it's really I'm still 90% maxed out so that high usage has more of an impact than my thousand payment that's what I was going to mention too is the usage right so you have to be careful with what you have as far as available credit and what you're using there has to be a fine balance there and what's the percentage that you're never supposed to go over when it comes to credit card usage 50 is the the the max but a lot of lenders say they prefer 30 yeah I was going to say I think that's that's what we're told to explain is 30% which is better all right if an exceptional score is gradually dein because of no installment loans would it be worthwhile to take out a small loan to raise the the score again um it wouldn't hurt but it depends on what you consider to like down if if you're still over 7 like 780 800 getting that loan if you don't need it isn't really helpful um so I I don't I don't you'd have to look and see where you are because the reality is if you're still in that that excellent range it doesn't matter that you drop Five Points it matters that you're in that that top tier and that you're still going to get a good loan if it's Dr because normally if it's dropping it's not going to just drop because no installment loans there might be other things going on um but I I'm just not a fan of taking out a loan just to take the loan out the reality is when you take that loan out you're going to pay interest on it so you're going to pay the lender back more than you took out so even if it's $1,000 loan yes you've got an installment loan on your credit file but if you pay back 00 that's $100 that you did just to increase your score by a few points and I don't know that it's really worth it in the long run so you just have to look at your credit situation one by one and that's where the um the Green Path credit counselors would be a good resource just to kind of talk through them because they can look at it to see if maybe it's more than just know installment loans that's causing it to go down and I believe that's a free resource isn't it Denise yes it is so yeah that definitely definitely want to mention that again uh your free credit counseling resource within Northwest is Green Path and um I said I will include that in the email as well um and they um offer aside from credit counseling a lot of different webinars like this as well with more information so they're an excellent resource another question um I received was what if you do not have enough money to pay your minimum amount is there any way that a bank can provide a loan for a firsttime business owner um so that is um tricky because a lot of people don't know that business loans are also based on personal credit of the owner so the business doesn't stand alone as a business entity right so in other words we never lend to the business the owner is always a guarantor unless it's a nonprofit so that's how that works with business lending it it does but they um they also look at the the business too yeah so they do have two years yeah so commercial loans there's a lot more to them than Consumer loans they do absolutely review your account they review your credit fil as a guarantor but there's also a ton of financial statements you have to provide for the business and other things it's there's a lot that goes into getting that commercial loan to try to get the business up and running um but that's again something I would I would talk to counselors the credit counselors and just say and tell them that you might sign on as a guarantor for a commercial loan and ask them if they think you've got the the credit to support that loan because a lot of times the commercial loans are much bigger than the personal loans um and it's a lot it's a totally different process than applying for just a car for you know a person completely I will not pretend to know the process but I do know um we usually require for businesses to be in business for two years um and then the um credit of the business owner is also considered um is there if there is an error or credit on the credit report is it best to dispute it with the business collection agency or the credit reporting agency or both I would do both so call the company to let them know that you see an error generally they'll tell you to dispute it online because it's quicker for them if if I go online and I put a dispute they get a notification and they go into a portal and they can fix it if it's wrong if they have to manually fix it it's a lot tougher because there's a lot of details that have to go in there and if they miss one thing or they get something off the fix doesn't go through and then you're back to complaining about it again so it's it's easiest for you to dispute it but call them tell them you're disputing it tell them why you're disputing it because then they can address it as quickly as possible so I would I would recommend both yeah for sure and my my um first course of action when you whenever you get in trouble like Amy said previously is always get in touch with your lender don't pip bypass that step because they need to be aware of going what what's going on and they'll be more likely to work with you if they know what situations you're facing um I was unable to pay a card and it went to collections would it be best to pay the collection agency monthly or wait until I have a larger sum of money and settle to negotiate a lesser pay P off if you make the payment monthly The Collection balance will go down um and collections are a big part of that payment history grid so it like I said the the first two were 65% of your score you're going to have a huge negative there because of the item that's in collections so I would I would recommend paying it down but again talk to the Green Path people too because sometimes they can help you negotiate with the collection agency because you might not even have to wait till you have a huge amount of money um I've had people I've worked with that contacted the collection agency and said look I I want to pay this off I can't afford the full thing and they'll offer them a discounted payment it's just a matter of whether they'll give you a payment plan with a discounted payment or what they'll do so again that's where calling that collection agency they want the money you know what I mean so they'll they'll work with you to get it paid so it's it's better for you to be proactive and reach out to them and showing you're willing to work with them because otherwise they could go to court and and garnish your wages so I would rather you you know contact them and work out a payment plan and see if maybe they'll reduce the amount due rather than go to court and just take money out of your paycheck with in you not being able to do anything about that exactly all right the next question is more from me about Northwest so Robert I will um address that separately and I will email you back Kelly has a follow-up question would you recommend to close the secured card once your score has increased does it look bad on your credits see a secured card like knowing you were in a bad credit situ situation at some point not everybody I mean some people everyone starts credit at some point like I said my friend Sada she started with a secur card she still has that secured card and her score is up to a 745 so she's added other things since then she's now gotten an auto loan because she recently had a baby and so now they had to buy a minivan but um it it it hasn't hurt her to have it it you just have to be responsible with it the fact that it's secured isn't as positive as if it was a regular credit card but as long as you shows as paid is agreed for the time you've had it it's not a negative that's what I was going to say yeah when your mortgages transfer to a new company but your um your error appeared on an old loan company which one do I call to negotiate so this was Chase who had the mortgage question earlier with um error in electronic automatic payment and since then I guess the mortgage has been sold so it would have to go to through the new one it depends on how the loan is so if the loan was sold and then bought the company and it shows us two separate line items on the credit file the delinquency would be on the first one so you'd have to go to that previous company if it was a merger or something happened that like they just Chang names or changed account numbers and it looks like the same loan the whole time then you go to the new company because a lot of times like if credit unions or Banks merge the account stays same but the name changes on it and the account number might change slightly then you would definitely go to the new one if it if it shows as it was transferred sold and then it's transferred purchased if the negatives down here on transferred sold you have to go to the company that's reporting the delinquency because the new company can't impact that old account that was never theirs that's true that makes sense all right um next question what is The Sweet Spot above six 650 sorry I can't speak anymore to get a good mortgage loan getting to 720 is not possible for me um it depends on the mortgage lender there's there's not a set if you can't I I would work with the the financial counselors and talk to mortgage lenders at Northwest I i' I've worked with Joe talage there for years he's he's great he's got some good lenders that are under him on the mortgage team um and just ask them what the lowest they would go on a mortgage loan is yeah if they can't accommodate what you see as being able to get to in the timeline you need to you can you can try a mortgage broker um what a mortgage broker does is it they'll pull your credit to see where you are and then they send it out to a variety of lenders to try to get you a loan that's affordable and within the timeline so a lot of people who have not as good credit scores sometimes will go through a mortgage broker as opposed to directly to you know a credit union like Northwest where they're guaranteed to get the best rate just to try to have an option of getting it um you will see multiple inquiries on your credit file because the broker pulls it and then they send it out to lenders and each lender has to pull it from each credit bureau but it because it's the mortgage you have that 30 days to shop so it ites it only counts as one hit to your credit score even though you see a bunch of different things so I I would I would talk to the the Northwest mortgage team to start with to kind of see what they see as possible for you and what they recommend you work on and if it's just way out of that range and you need the house soon um then I a mortgage broker is another option but the rates might not be as good as what you'd get at Northwest yeah exactly yeah Chase I can get you in touch with one of our mortgage on offices for sure um and three your registration I have everyone's email address so if I say I'm going to follow up I have your email addresses already um does freezing credit impact your score it does not so um all freezing credit does is it prevents anybody from doing a hard inquiry so if if I freeze my credit file and someone gets my information if they apply for loan at Northwest it's going to keep Northwest won't be able to pull my credit file in the inquiry will fail um so that it stops me from having people use my information in LLY it it they can still do what we call a South Pole so if I have say a credit card with Northwest and they want to do a review to see if maybe my score's gone up if they want to give me a rate an increased limit that score can still come through even though it's it's frozen because it's a soft pole and I and I already have an account with them I've already got a relationship with them freezes stop hard PS from happening so it protects you in in cases of identity theft is what it's most normally used for okay and yes Janet I will be sending the um the link to Green Path as well um next question I had a JC Penney store car that was upgraded to a MasterCard back in October 2023 I recently noticed that the store card was still showing as open with the balance from October but had no updates since then I filed a dispute with all three bureaus and with JC Penny uh now it shows as closed but with the date of October 2019 is that a big deal interesting um I'm not sure that's it's kind of like I've never seen where it closed five years in the past especially when it just updated now um I think the key is that it's not showing is delinquent or having a balance du when there isn't one there so the the good news is they fix that piece but if the date it was closed is wrong you can dispute that piece too they they're it has to be fair and accurate is is the rule within the government for the credit reporting and if it's fair because it's closed but it's inaccurate you can dispute it and make them correct the date I would say if it's inaccurate just get it fixed right because you you want your credit report to um reflect accurate information so uh do the reports show if it's secure card or not I believe it does I believe there's a comment code that can be on there but I'd have to can you send me that one as a followup up so I can confirm y loose track of it all right and I would say I mean we're five minutes out we still have to do the uh the raffle so I'm going to copy the rest of these questions and we'll pose them to Amy separately in an email and then once I get a response from her I will email you guys back so please know guys we're working hard to answer all these questions for you um think I have all of them now yes all right so now to the raffle question so get your typing finger ready for me yeah there's my email address thank you Amy um get your typing fingers ready and your keyboards out Etc you want to get ready to ask the question and uh we are giving away $25 thisa gift card to the first person that answered this correctly so let me go to the bottom of my chat so I don't miss the first um question all right so I mean the first answer so what is the range of a base creddit score we had it on a slide earlier I think I said it three or four times all right first Michelle Michelle got it I see Don oh no Don did Don yeah yeah Don was Don you are the winner of this round and I will email you to get your uh address where I can send that to you along with some other goodies so again thank you guys so much for your time today thank you for logging in I know this is always a a Hot Topic especially now during during these times right um if you have any more follow-up questions please email me my email address is listed right here make sure you note it down I have the other questions that we did not get to um on a separate piece of paper that I will work with Amy on getting answers to you um I hope this was informative I hope it was worth your time we certainly appreciate you coming on Amy thank you again so much you did an awesome job you're always so full of great information I love it oh always learn something new with you every year um thank you all have a great rest of your afternoon and take care yep thank you guys