What Is A Personal Credit Report Score ?

A personal credit report score is a number that tells a potential creditor how well you manage your credit and what the likelihood of you paying them back. Yes I know, it almost sounds like a test score when you were going to school!

Although there are over 1200 hundred reporting agencies available to access your personal credit report, the most significant reporting agencies are from these three major companies: Equifax, Trans Union and Experian. When you are trying to clean your personal credit report to improve your credit report personal score, these will be the companies you will contact.

Creditors and mortgage companies use these scores with their own qualifying model to determine your credit worthiness. Potential employers use these scores to analysis how responsible you are, looking for any trends based on the information gathered on your credit personal report.

It is now very important for you as a consumer as well as potential employee or renter to make sure your credit personal score is in good standing.

How your credit score is determined?

Credit scores are calculated from a variety of complicated formulas known as alogorithms. The most popular calculation used is called the Fico Score. The credit score is a number calculated from formulas that uses information such as number of creditors, late payments, length of account open, limits of your credit, etc. Credit reports use your social security number and name to match credit information. New employers use your current address, current employer and length of employment too. These reports show any tax liens, judgments or bankruptcies that you may have had. It’s important to be current if you want to improve credit score ratings.

Is the FICO credit score the only score used?

FICO score is the most widely used and is the standard for most credit reporting systems. However  CreditXpert and Experian’s PLUS Score are used and compared to FICO scores. These scoring systems  are used to determine your credit worthiness which can range from 450-850. Actual scores are seldom the same because each reporting service uses their own credit scoring model and credit data gathered.

If your credit score is calculated by creditors who use the three credit agencies, to make it fair, the middle score is used. This middle score is NOT an average. If two scores out of three happen to be the same score the creditor will always use the lower of the two.

Here's the breakdown of the scoring:
 
700 - 900 Perfect
680 - 699 excellent
620 - 679 good
600 - 619 fair
500 - 599 poor
 
Creditors use these values and create tiered levels of risk and design programs based on their criteria. Don't forget to get your individual credit reports from the each of the three major credit reporting. The best report is the 3-in-1 credit report that also gives your credit scores from the three major credit reporting agencies.
 
Order here for Equifax FICO score at Get Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1 Now! .
 
Order a Trans Union FICO score at http://www.transunion.com
 
Order here for Experian  at http://www.experian.com

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