Page 39 - Book7E

4 . Add Accounts to Your File
Your credit file may not reflect all your credit accounts. Most national department store and all-purpose bank credit card accounts are included in your file, but not all. Some
travel, entertainment, gasoline card com-
panies, local retailers, and credit unions are among those that usually aren’t included.
If you’ve been told that you were denied
credit because of an “insufficient credit file”
or “no credit file" and you have accounts
with creditors that don’t appear in your
credit file, ask the credit reporting compa-
nies to add this information to future reports. Although they are not required to do so, many credit reporting bureaus will add verifiable accounts for a fee. However, if these creditors do not generally report to the consumer reporting company, the added items will not be updated in your file.
5 . Keep Your Credit Clean
To help establish good credit and ensure your credit report is painting a positive picture of you, it’s important to follow these tips:
A . Pay your bills on time . You are already a step ahead when it comes to paying your bills on time because of your involvement with Family Financial Education Foundation. Nothing helps your effort to improve your credit standing faster than keeping current on all bills.
B . Avoid consumer debt . Eliminate or reduce the number of credit cards you have and keep the balances low. It’s wise to have just one or possibly two major credit cards and use them only for emergencies. If you must charge something, make sure you can pay it off at the end of each month.
How to Rebuild Your Credit 31
Wouldst thou shut up the avenues of ill, pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson