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The lesser known VantageScore made another inroad in its battle with the almighty Fico score, grabbing a patent for its system of “characteristic leveling.”

In short, characteristic leveling provides consistency among the 3 major credit bureaus, something the traditional Fico score has struggled with (why credit scores are different?)

So if the same data is presented by different credit bureaus, it should yield the same result, or credit score.

“The ability to use a common score across the three CRCs minimizes consumer and lender confusion,” said VantageScore Solutions President and Chief Executive Officer Barrett Burns, in a press release.

“Because of VantageScore’s consistency across all three CRCs, lenders who use it will be better able to delineate risk in a predictive manner.”

This is pretty important because many banks and mortgage lenders currently rely on the middle of our 3 credit scores when making a decision to extend credit.

And borrowers have to worry about disparities between their credit scores, which are often the result of different reporting by bureaus using the same data.

In fact, many consumers have such a wide range of scores that they may be deemed excellent by one, and only average by another.

The hope is that with characteristic leveling in place, differences in credit score will only be attributable to different data sets, as opposed to differing scoring algorithms.

This increased consistency could lure more creditors over to VantageScore, which is currently a small fish compared to the all-powerful Fico score.

Recently, Fico also lost the trademark on its 300-850 credit score range.

| Tags: Fico, Hand Fico
Posted February 4, 2011 by Brayden Laura under Credit Report

Are you being sued by a former creditor?

The purpose of filing for bankruptcy is to discharge debt. Protect your discharge by taking action if creditors attempt to collect after bankruptcy.

I received a call yesterday from an old bankruptcy client. Nice guy, retired from the military. He and his wife were quite alarmed to receive a visit from the sheriff serving them with notice of a collections lawsuit on a debt they discharged in bankruptcy. I opened their file to double check that the debt had been included in their filing and sure enough it had been. We surrendered a parcel of vacant land that had dropped precipitously in value to the bank over a year ago. The bank received notice of the filing and the discharge, but now they were suing. I immediately referred my clients to an attorney who does a lot of good work enforcing debtor’s rights in Bankruptcy Court. E

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| Tags: Debt, Debt Might
Posted February 3, 2011 by Imogen Lay under Credit Report

If you’ve ever filed for personal bankruptcy or taken other steps to get yourself out of significant debt, hopefully you were able to learn from your experience and are now on the road to stronger finances. While learning from our mistakes is perhaps not the most fun way to get better at things, it’s often the most effective.

That’s why it can be nice when we can learn from the mistakes of others – it saves us a little grief. A recent article from the Motley Fool offers some financial lessons we can all take away from our country’s recent financial meltdown and ongoing troubles.

Here’s a summary.

Avoid Your Next Financial Crisis

A recently released report on the financial crisis and the job markets indicates that, for the most part, what went wrong could have been prevented. How? By avoiding these financial mistakes, which translate nicely into lessons for personal finance.

• Avoid blame: In the political sphere, accepting responsibility for something that went wrong could easily translate to losing your job. But in your

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| Tags: Learn, Learn Country’s
Posted February 1, 2011 by Amelie Hampton under Bankruptcy Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision on January 11, 2011, making it more difficult for debtors to pass the Chapter 7 means test. The means test includes two car related deductions from income. Debtors may be eligible to deduct from income an allowance for car-operating costs and a separate allowance for car-ownership costs. The amount of the debtors allowances are based upon published table of National and Local Standard as well as their actual expenses.

The Supreme Court case involved the means test filed by a debtor who owned a car free and clear of any debt and liens. The issue in this case was whether such debtor can claim the car-ownership allowance when the debtor has no monthly car payment and his only car expenses are those related to car operations.

In the past, many attorneys, myself included, claimed both a car-operating and car-ownership allowance even through the debtor had paid off his car or leased a car. Read more…

| Tags: Car, Means Test, Supreme Court
Posted January 31, 2011 by Brayden Laura under Credit Report

Excessive debt is suffocating; like a dark cloud in cartoons, debt hangs gloomily over your head and affects nearly every aspect of your life. Anytime you think the situation is under control, another bill arrives; like always, due to late fees, it’s double the amount you were anticipating.

You know you have to get your finances under control, but don’t know where to start.

Take a deep breath and relax. While the opposite may seem true, you do have plenty of options. You’re not alone: in recent years, millions of indebted Americans have been turning to debt counselors. Some people choose to consolidate their debt, others choose bankruptcy, but more and more people are turning to debt settlement.

Pros to Entering into a Debt Settlement Agreement

A good portion of your debt will be forgiven

Why is debt settlement the financial arrangement du’jour? For sta Read more…

| Tags: Debt, Debt Settlement
Posted January 29, 2011 by Brayden Laura under Credit Report

Good creditor!

The Automatic Stay Stops Creditor Harassment

Creditors are like dogs, really mean dogs. They bark and bark and bark. Problem is that your creditors don’t respond to commands nearly as well as your dog. When you tell them to “SHUT UP”, they generally don’t comply, they just continue barking. Don’t you wish getting creditors off your back was as simple as training your pooch? Well, it can be.

Those who have been forced to file for bankruptcy due to overwhelming credit card debt, medical bills or the loss of a job are usually also being harassed by their creditors. While bankruptcy is an important life decision, not to be lightly entered into, it does afford tremendous protection from creditor harassment. The instant a bankruptcy case is filed, an injunction is put in place, called the automatic stay. The automatic stay prevents your creditors from continuing with any collection activity. Once you’v

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| Tags: Now Stay, Stay
Posted January 29, 2011 by Imogen Lay under Credit Report

One of my clients files Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The client is an accounts manager for a one doctor medical practice. The doctor gave the client signature authority on the office account at Wells Fargo Bank so the client could easily pay the office bills. The account is titled in the name of the boss’s medical corporation. All the money in the account is from the medical practice receipts; the debtor deposits none of her personal money in the account. The account is set up under the business’s tax ID number.

After the client filed personal bankruptcy Wells Fargo froze the account because the debtor had signature authority. The doctor cannot pay his business bills with his own money. My office called a manager at Wells Fargo Bank and wrote emails to Wells Fargo demanding they release the account freeze, but the bank ignored our calls and letters. Next, we wrote an email to the Chapter 7 trustee in the hope that he would contact Wells Fargo and get them to correct their error. The

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| Tags: Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Debtors
Posted January 26, 2011 by Brayden Laura under Credit Report

ATLANTA (Source: Equifax) - While Americans continue to pay off debts and reduce spending, Equifax (NYSE:  EFX), one of the leading nationwide credit reporting agencies, finds many households still carry a heavy debt burden – in some cases owing up to 17 percent of their income to credit card companies alone.No one region of the country is shouldering the credit card debt burden – Equifax found the top 50 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) hardest hit by credit card debt, as a percentage of income owed in 2010, are clustered in six states across the country: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Washington and California.

These states also have some of the highest total credit card balances for the country:

Equifax reports that while total consumer debt (mortgage, auto, credit card, etc.) has declined 8.2 percent from its peak of $11.5 trillion in October of 2008, 54 million American households still owe more than $800 billion in debt to credit card companies alone – irrespective of other debts such as mortgages or students loans.

“The good news is we’re seeing Americans paying off their debts and becoming more fiscally fit,” says Dianne Bernez, Equifax’s senior vice president for corporate communications. “However, the

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| Tags: Credit, Credit Cards
Posted January 25, 2011 by Imogen Lay under Credit Report

The Federal Trade Commission took steps last week to halt another group carrying out a debt relief scam on unsuspecting consumers. The settlement involves a $500,000 fine and prohibition of the defendant’s future in the debt relief industry.

Here’s a look at the specifics of the case and how to avoid similar scams in the future.

Advertisements Offer “Quick” and “Easy” Debt Elimination

According to the FTC, the scam worked like this:

• Misleading advertisements: The company advertised that consumers could make “one simple call” to eliminate their debt for “far less” than they owed.
• Sale of contact information: Rather than actually following through with these lofty promises, though, the company in question (which called itself both The Hermosa Group and the Financial Future Network) simply sold consumers’ names and contact information to other debt relief service providers or other sales groups.
• False claims: Because of this deceptive advertising, the FTC alleged that the company’s ads were false and unsubstantiated. It seems that the compa

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| Tags: Debt Relief, Relief
Posted January 25, 2011 by Amelie Hampton under Bankruptcy Articles