Same woman as often appears on pledge marathons, telling the marks in current bubbly-speak, that they are Young, Fabulous and.. Broke cha cha cha 'Scheer'? maybe. Google it.

I paid little attention because I try not to owe the suckers; also haven't used my 2, 3? free credit reports/year from each of the US big-3 collectors of all those dossiers on Everyone. Yet..
(Gotta keep enough little grey cells open for OS-X.. as and when.)

Didn't note at all carefully, but - you need to check out the new Rulez, the formulas via which *THEY* assign you a (forget xact terms) a couple of Numbers; these determine not only your overall Credit Rating, but also -the Important Part- how much Interest they will charge you on ANY existing balance.

She also gave an example of Why you don't want to close CC accounts (unless you have a jillion) ie putting all eggs in 1, 2 baskets == how exactly this affects your new Credit Number via the formula. Check PBS pledge nights to see this live, if you don't want to sleuth out the same formula. A key ratio is:

Divide your Total = summed Limits of all CCs / by your current outstanding balance(s). That ratio determines not merely your available new-buy amount "faux-equity?"; it also determines one of those numbers. Clearly, owing 10% of what you might owe == much better in their ever expectant greedy pig-eyes than .. owing 90%, whatever the |Value| of your limit. Etc.

Box, you Need to grok this shit to fullness, otherwise you're the victim they Count trillions on: who doesn't bother to find out such things as:

IF.. you default on *ANYTHING* (or are late, have a beef .. anything that impedes ANYONE's smooth flow of cash and involves a contract) THEN:
ALL your purchases AND PRESENT BALANCES will be subject to a Higher APR than before; INSTANTLY! You are now "RISKIER" == must pay More.

That means exactly: even the rate you can nail for a mortgage, car, whatever. This cartel has the same ethical cancer as the statutory Repo. Unless you bug them re extenuating circumstances of such a beef, with paperwork = make sure your response is on file, you will be downgraded as if the negative report were 100% legit. And it only takes ONE such neg report to do all these automatic things.

Frontline [PBS] recently also covered much of the monopolistic skullduggery / unwillingness of legislators to act [Big News] etc., though this wasn't about "improving, maintaining the magic ratings".

The woman gave some more detailed suggestions, for those slow on deduction.. for building-up both Magic Numbers. PBS is your friend, if you don't unplug it (or ...'her', if that gets more attention ;-) I imagine there are a jillion books, pamphlets etc. which I'm unaware of.


Luck with the boring Econ

moi