Category Archives: Finance

Credit Scores Gone Wild – 6 Reasons To Revamp The Credit Scoring System

Vote on Blog EngageIt’s always been said that if you have good credit you’ll be offered lower interest rates because you’re considered a low credit risk. As a result, over the years many of us have spent countless hours and exorbitant fees trying to repair our credit reports. Last year we were hit by this current financial crisis and, in-turn the credit card companies began raising interest rates, even for those of us that were previously considered low risk. The logical conclusion here is that banks can raise your rates whenever they want; your pristine credit rating ain’t worth diddly.

My question to you is, why do we need those credit reporting agencies anyway? Oh yeah, that would be: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. Let’s review a few points:
  1. The 3 agencies spew out different – often conflicting information on your report
  2. One out of the 3 has to be more accurate than the other 2
  3. Very often we end up with wrong information appearing on our reports that we need to have “fixed
  4. It’s no secret that these 3 agencies are flawed, (isn’t that the reason we have 3 in the first place) so let’s “fix’ them and the methods they use to collect the data
  5. If we need to rely on credit reporting agencies can’t we have just one that is accurate at least 90 – 95% of the time? Come on people this is American right?
  6. Bottom line – what’s the difference when it seems the lending institutions can basically charge whatever interest rate they want whenever they get ready to anyway??
Credit Basis

Credit Basis

I know that there is someone reading this thinking that I’m out of my league and I don’t know how devastating it would be to change the current system. If you happen to be that person, I say to you, the next time you get your free annual credit report, and if you find no erroneous, outdated or just plain old wrong data on all 3 of them, watch out your interest rates are about to go up!

EXAMPLE: On September 1, 2009 Michael Jackson’s credit scores were reported by TMZ as 592, 575 and 524. (R.I.P. King of Pop)

Wide Angle

So I’ve been immersed in this newly acquired knowledge about stocks, bonds, futures, derivatives and such because I subscribe to The Bond Gurl blog.  And I’m taking it all in – letting it marinate in my brain, all the while yearning to know what impact this financial awakening will have on my future. 

To give myself time to regroup, my plan was to take a break from the blogosphere and watch a little PBS, as I often do.  A show comes on that I’ve never watched before – Wide Angle.  

I began to watch an episode, called The Market Maker  featuring a woman named Eleni Gabre-Madhin and how she started a commodities market in Ethiopia during April of 2008. 

Eleni Gabre-Madhan

Eleni Gabre-Madhan

For a minute I thought that I might have drifted off to sleep perhaps I was in the midst of a dream.  I sat up at attention and said to myself, did they just say that a woman started a market in Ethiopia last year??  I find that fascinating.

Oh…K! Now I can’t sit still.  I can’t even wait to finish watching the program, I’ve got to turn on my pc, get on the web and find out more about this woman. Since the Bing search is on my toolbar I wasted no time opening Clusty. 

I typed in her name and the first hit on the list is a talk Eleni did on TED.com

Finish reading here