Can I Check My Credit Rating?
Check and Improve Your Credit Score Ratings

How To Get Your FREE CREDIT REPORT

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Important Fact: There Is No Way To Eliminate A Bad Credit Rating

Many sites advertise that they will eliminate bad credit. This is not possible. There are things you can do to improve your credit rating - these are all covered on this page, and you don't need to pay anyone else to do this for you. If you have bad credit for legitimate reasons (eg you didn't keep up with repayments) no-one can eliminate it for you. Anyone who says they can is misleading you and trying to get your money.

Want To Check Your Credit Report?
Here's How To Do It Yourself For Free

In both the US and the UK, there are three main credit agencies that lenders will use to check your credit rating. In the UK these are Experian, Equifax and CallCredit and in the US they are Experian, Equifax and Transunion. There is normally a charge for the services these companies provide, but in the US you are entitled to one free report per year. In both countries you can check your credit reports completely free of charge by signing up for a free trial, and cancelling your subscription before the trial period ends. The information you will find can be extremely useful if you are thinking about applying for a loan or mortgage.

UK Citizens - Sign Up With Experian For A Free Trial Of CreditExpert And Get Your Free Credit Report

US Citizens - Sign Up With Credit.com For A Free Trial And Get Your Free Credit Reports From All Three Agencies

With both of the above schemes, remember that you have to cancel your subscription during the free trial to avoid incurring any payment for the reports.

Credit Score Ratings - What If My Credit History Has Mistakes In It?

If you see anything in your credit record which you think is incorrect, you need to write to the credit report company and ask them to amend the information. Hopefully such genuine errors can be sorted out and corrected quickly. If they refuse to make the changes, you should be allowed to add your own notes to the files as a 'notice of correction'. This at least gets your point of view onto your credit rating records.

Important Facts About Your Credit Rating (UK Only)

Credit Score Ratings - It Isn't One Fixed Thing

Many people imagine that we all have some universal 'score' and that if this number is too low you will not get credit and if it is high enough you will get credit. This is not true. All that is stored about you is various bits of personal and financial information.

When you apply for credit, the company you are applying to will have their own way of using this information to score you and assess whether you are going to be good for their needs. Each company will have different ways of scoring because they have different criteria in terms of the type of customers they want to give credit to.

Credit Score Ratings - There Is No Blacklist

There is no big list of people who should not be given credit. As explained above, there is just a collection of information that companies use to assess you. If you have a history which shows that you are likely to be a risky bet, then chances are that most companies will pick that up and reject you. Repeated rejection can make it feel as though you are blacklisted, but it is just that your history is telling companies that they probably will not make money out of you.

Credit Score Ratings - Rejection Doesn't Necessarily Mean There Is A Problem On Your Report

Because companies use different criteria to assess your credit rating, you may well be rejected by one company and accepted by another. Being rejected for credit does not necessarily mean you are thought to have credit problems in your history, it could in fact mean the opposite. Whenever a lender offers credit, they are doing it with the intention of making money from you. If their assessment of your credit history suggests that they are not going to make money from you, they will reject you.

The reason they reject you could be because you always pay your cards back on time and never pay any interest charges. That is no good to them as they will not turn a profit from you. I myself was recently rejected by several card companies, and I am 100% sure if is because I have had a string of other cards where I have taken large amounts of credit and not paid a penny in interest. From the card company's point of view - why would they want me as a customer?

As far as a credit card company is concerned, their ideal customer is someone who always has some debt, pays interest every month but doesn't actually default on their minimum payments. That is what they are looking for, so that is what their scoring is aimed at identifying.

Credit Score Ratings - How To Improve Your Credit Rating

The following actions should all help to improve your credit rating by giving credit companies some of the things they like to see:

Make sure you're on the electoral roll, otherwise you have virtually no chance of getting credit.

Cancel any old credit cards that you currently have but don't use. Just the fact that you stop using a card does not stop it from counting in your credit rating. You may have cut up a card that you could borrow £3,000 against, but that will show up as current credit unless you actually contact the card company to cancel it. So if you have several old cards that you don't use but haven't cancelled, you will be perceived as already having a great deal of credit and could be rejected for further credit.

Make sure you don't default or be late with any payments for credit cards, etc. Always make sure you at least make the minimum payments, as the consequences of defaulting could affect your credit rating for a long time.

If you have no history of taking credit, there will e little for lenders to assess, so build yourself a bit of history. You can do this by taking on any card that will have you, because the interest rate doesn't matter provided that you pay it off in full every month. The best way to ensure this is to set up a direct debit to clear the balance each month. This tactic also applies if you have a poor credit history that you need to put behind you.

Every time you apply for credit it shows on your file, and too many close together can have a negative impact. Be aware of this and be careful not to apply for too many products in a short space of time.

Your partner's credit record should not affect yours, UNLESS you have any joint finances. Not just the big things like joint mortgages and bank accounts, but even joint names on utility bills, etc. For this reason, if either one of you has a credit history problem, keep everything separate in order not to affect the other person's credit rating.

If you get rejected a few times and you believe there aren't any issues in your credit history which ought to cause this, you should check your credit rating in case there is an error on it. If you repeatedly make applications because you are getting rejected, your rating can then be negatively affected just by the number of applications you are making. Find out how to check your credit rating below, to make sure the information held on you is correct.

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