Tag Archives: financial institutions

How sufficient is your credit?

A message on a credit report that can pop up is “insufficient credit”. This is a message commonly found for those who are young, operated primarily with buying things cash, or perhaps haven’t taken out a form of credit in a very long time. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, but rather a good launching point towards developing health credit.

When applying for credit, lenders are only allowed to use a specific set of criteria to evaluate an application. Insufficient credit history indicates that the applicant doesn’t have enough accounts with a long enough payment history to approve an application. Banks, cell phone companies, and utility companies also look at this information when you set up a new account. As an applicant applies for bigger loans, lenders want to see that an applicant can handle multiple accounts responsibly. If someone only has a single credit card or too few accounts overall this could be a reason for rejection on a credit application.

On the other side of the coin, one wouldn’t want to go opening too many new accounts in a short time to build credit. On average it takes a minimum of 6 months for a new trade to make progress on an individual’s credit rating. Opening too many would be classified as an escalation of new debt. This could also be a reason to deny an applicant on a credit application. On another note, if there isn’t an update in activity (such as a credit limit increase or a new line of credit) for a substantial period, an individual’s credit could become stale and outdated causing it to be insufficient again. Keep in mind that the age of active credit lines also helps in building a score over time. These trades could be a line of credit or a credit card primarily.

Updating the personal information in one’s credit history is relatively easy. Building up one’s credit history takes more time and credit experts emphasize that there is no quick fix to a credit score. Experts typically recommend a few ways to help keep things in a positive light for one’s credit: 1) pay all bills on time to avoid them going into a collection action 2) opening a secured credit card or secure loan of some sort to start a history 3) reporting non-debt obligations If your lender uses a scoring system that counts that among other ways. Some lenders will overlook an insufficient credit history if the applicant is strong in other areas such as in debt-to-income ratios and stable proof of income to show how one could make payments.

Keep in mind that another common misconception is that checking accounts, debit cards and credit union accounts do not build credit. The checking account is designated for expenses and the debit card can be run as “credit” but is not truly linked to a credit line. Credit union accounts give you access to the credit union and all its services such as lending and credit building programs.   

Having insufficient credit can be difficult and confusing at times, but it doesn’t have to be. Feel free to reach out to your local financial experts at your financial institution and ask for ways to help establish a credit history for yourself. It will take time but the result of a healthy score and better rates are worth it. Until the next time dear readers, excelsior!

The Savvy vs The Shyster

Every day, someone is a victim of some form of fraud. It’s something that hurts when it happens and can really set you back when it does. There are many ways that fraud can happen but, at the same time, there are many ways to protect yourself against it from happening to you.

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One common method of fraud involves your debit/credit card use. This is a common one I see daily. You find things being purchased on obscure sites and even sites you might even use frequently but haven’t touched in a while. On way this can happen is via data breach in a website or a company database. Any cards that were utilized could be subject to risk of fraud in those situations. One such example of this would be you use your card at the store and your financial institution shuts the card down due to notification of someone breaching the stores systems. The same concept could also be applied for online retailers if there is a notice of breach given as well.

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In addition to a merchant database being compromised there is also the possibility of “skimming”. Skimming is lifting data from the card via magnetic stripe or via RFID scan. A skimmer can be placed anywhere a magnetic stripe can be swiped on a card. Thigs such as the gas pump and even the terminal at a restaurant where the card can be swiped. One way to protect yourself from this kind of skimming would be to utilize your chip enabled debit/credit card(s). EVM chip cards have been around for several years and overseas they’ve been around even longer. There are some groups who are skeptical of the chip card but these are much more secure than the magnetic stripe due to how similar they work to Apple Pay. There is a unique code that is ran each time the chip is ran and that code will no longer be used once the card is ran through the terminal. In response fraudsters will try using RFID scanning sensors to get your card info. To protect yourself from this, a simple lined wallet with an RFID proof lining will deflect the RFID ray from a skimmer. These special wallets can be in the form of a regular wallet or a car carrying wallet. These are relatively inexpensive but a worthwhile investment. As a word of advice, never share your pin to your card with anyone because if fraud happens with the card it lowers the likelyhood of regaining the lost funds from the transactions. If you find yourself a victim of  debit/credit card fraud, contact your financial institution and dispute the charge. Once the dispute complete you would be able to recover funds and even acquire a new card.

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Another type of fraud that occurs would be in the form of a check. The check could be made out for several reasons. One such would be communication via email for a “job” and you need to do some purchasing or send money to someone. Another way would be via overnight delivery service and having a check wrote for an amount that is more than an item you paid for online or even from someone unrelated to any business you had dealings with. These typically happen during online sales on sites such as eBay or craigslist. The person you are corresponding with may also get you to send money overseas as well via some sort of international lottery that you never signed up for but allegedly won. A frequent one that comes up would also be being asked to send funds overseas for an inheritance from another country (commonly called the Nigerian prince scam). You also might be solicited for accepting money transfers through your bank and/or PayPal account to receive a “commission” of some sort. There might also be people asking you to cash or deposit a check through your account, or the alternative of usingyour debit card to deposit a check in the ATM. Lastly, and one of the most frequent I’ve seen, would be via online dating sites and the person you’re “dating” is sending or requesting funds to or from you. If that check is cashed or deposited the item will return as fraudulent and you will be out of the funds you’ve deposited/ cashed on top of a returned item fee from your institution. These instances will leave you with the bill and the person you’ve aided several hundred (or thousand) dollars richer. If you come across anything like this report it to your financial institution and local law enforcement. They would be able to assist you in determining if what is happening is a legitimate transaction or someone trying to set you up for failure.

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In the digital age there are so many ways we can communicate and access information; but there is a price to consider when we have all this power at our fingertips.  Scammers are always looking to find ways to get into your information and do damage. On method used is called “Phishing” aka email fraud; this involves a scammer pretending to be sending correspondence from a trusted source such as the government or your local doctors office. They might try to direct to a site to “verify” personal information or reset your password. Do not fall for this trap! If you notice an email for confirming certain information do not click on it, instead use a legitimate website or phone number to reach the organization in question. Also look for the “look” icon on your browsers status bar and see if the URL uses “https” in it’s addresses and check the spelling of the site to see if there is anything out of place. Pharming is also a form of information fraud in which a scammer will divert you to a copycat web site that looks legitimate but is not. Be on the look out for emails coming unexpectedly and treat it as a phishing attempt. There is also malware aka “spyware” that comes in the form of spam emails and that software can leak data and take control of your computer and leave you at the fraudster’s mercy.

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Keeping your computer safe is paramount in mitigating electronic information fraud. In this day and age you’ll want to consider investing in good antivirus and antimalware programs and keep up to date with your computer’s OS and software patches. Do not judge by initial appearance because there are plenty of software options for a shyster to make a site look legitimate and catch you in a trap! Be diligent in how much information you put online as well as exercising caution on giving personal data. You will also want to use secure passwords for different software that you use. You shouldn’t keep the same pin or password for everything, which many people do because it is easy to remeber, because if one site is compromised the rest could be in danger as well! Never leave your passwords wrote down in the open that will set you up for compromise as well.  Invest in a firewall to keep the bad guys out but above all else, you are your own human firewall, so you must know the signs and know how to protect yourself from internet fraud!

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If you or anyone you know are a victim, or potential victim of fraud on the internet you will want to visit the internet crime complaint center (ic3). This is designed to report complaints of cybercrimes and alert authorities of suspected violations. The center identifies current crime trends on the web as well as aid local law enforcement in investigating the bad guys involved. This overall will help with reducing losses that you, your loved ones, your work or anywhere else could lose due to cybercrime. The website is www.ic3.gov and it is a valuable tool in the fight against fraud. Use these tools and knowledge to protect yourself and your information and money. Be careful out there and stay savvy my friend.