And If That Is Different From The Three Credit Agencies?

Q: I was just wondering what the inital credit score is, I mean the score that somebody would have with no credit history eg. a teenager or an immigrant. And if that is different from the three credit agencies?

A: -Each credit reporting agency (3 majors, lots of minor ones) generates its own score and passes that number on to business subscribers. The most famous score used by credit reporting agencies is from FICO (Fair Isaac Company), but there are others. -I think the normal range for credit scores (FICO) is 300 to 850 (the average score should be around 710 according to FICO). But I still would like to know in what range you are when you start, I couldn't find any information about that. -While that worked in your case (because it was a desirable or necessary move) doing such a thing unnecessarily can present some maddening problems that can come back to haunt you in the future: DW got a Price Club membership before Costco took them over. When we signed up for the Costco/American Express credit card, her name was the *primary* on the account, and I was an *additional* cardholder. Now, if I call Amex to ask a question on the account, they won't talk to me unless DW is at my side to authorize the conversation. Since I do the financial stuff in our family, this is a major PIT

A: -I didn't know they did this for high school students (maybe it was because of his job) but credit card companies routinely foist their cards on college students, and have for many decades (my first one was a Mobil Oil card). It has everything to do with establishing early *buying-on-credit* habits which they accurately presume will lead to many years of the targets carrying an $8,000 balance each month (now the average unpaid balance for US families). -The car I bought was only on my name. I was in the U.S. for about 3 months at the time. The basic up shot of it was the 20+ percent in interest I had to pay as the result of having no credit history. Even after making payments on time for over a year still caused me to be rejected when applying for credit cards. I managed to get a Sears mastercard at some point though. But even after having that for a year and making payments on it, I could not get another credit card. -Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, our problem is that Amex can only use the account information from Costco because this was a new credit card designed only for Costco members. (The card itself is actually dual purpose -- Costco membership and Amex cash back credit card.) Thus, in order to change the Amex primary name, we'd have to go back to Costco and do the same. The problem THERE is that we hold a small business class Costco membership -- which my wife qualified for by virtue of her past business association, but I do not.

Discuss It!

Most Popular Articles

More

Marketplace

Related Articles

More

Related Categories

More

Recently Added

More

Other Great Sites