How to Obtain Your Credit Score

We are inundated with magazine articles, commercials, and internet ads all showing us ways to raise our credit score or how to obtain credit information, but what exactly is a credit score and how do you find out what your score is?

According to the Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO,) credit scores range from 300 to 850, 850 being the highest credit score you can achieve. Five factors are considered when calculating a credit score: payment history, length of credit history, new credit, types of credit used, and amounts owed.

While there is no set score cutoff used by lenders, most agree that maintaining a score over 700 is considered desirable. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, a score about 710 is normally considered a good credit risk, while a score under 620 is considered a high risk.

How do you obtain your score? There are a number of ways to find out the information, here are the top three:

Contact your credit lender. If you have recently obtained a new credit card, purchased a car, rented an apartment, agreed to a credit check for an offer of employment, or re-financed your home, check to see if your lender has your credit score on file.

Credit scores are pulled to help lenders and employers determine whether you are credit risk and what types of loan rates to offer. Most of these lenders will be willing to disclose the information to you, at no charge, whether you obtained approval or not.

Estimate your score. Using online calculators, such as those found at HSH Associateshttp://www.hsh.com/credscorecalc.html, will give you an estimated score. While these are not perfect calculations, they will give you a very good idea of where your score falls.

You may want to obtain a copy of your current credit report prior to using a credit score calculator. To request a copy, visit the Annual Credit Report website at https://www.annualcreditreport.com or call 1-877-FACTACT.

Purchase your credit score. If the free options available don't work for you, you may reqest your score from one of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax http://www.equifax.com 1-800-685-111, Experian http://www.experian.com 1-800-397-3742, and TransUnion www.transunion.com 1-800-4213. The cost is $8 to $15 per instance.

You may find that you have different credit scores at each credit reporting company due to the varient ways the credit reporting company calculates your score. However, all of your scores should be within a few points of the other. If not, you may want to follow up with the particular credit reporting company to find out why your score deviates dramatcially. It could be due to a reporting error.

Once you have your credit score, read 10 Easy Ways to Raise Your Credit Score for more information on where to go from here.