Category: Credit reports
Pre-nuptial credit check
This article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette advises couples to examine each other's credit scores and reports before getting married, as part of a general goal of learning to talk about finances sooner rather than later.
Seems creepy, but the motivation is a good one:
"Unfortunately, we don’t always talk about financial issues. It’s so unromantic," said Sheryl Garrett, a Kansas financial planner and author of Just Give Me The Answer$.But romance can be quickly extinguished, too, if one partner’s financial troubles spill over onto the other. David Diggs, a family lawyer in Baltimore, said money is the root of 80 percent of the divorces he handles.
The one true credit score
These days, consumers are advised to periodically get and examine their credit reports and credit scores from the big three credit reporting companies (TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax).
But as this article points out, the credit scores that the three companies give you will be different, and the scores may also differ from the score a prospective lender gets when they pull your scores from these companies.
According to the article, the primary reasons for these differences are:
- Each company uses a different, though similar, scoring formula. So even with identical data, each company might give you a slightly different score.
- Your credit score changes as the reporting companies get new information on you.