What To Do If You Are Denied Credit

If you are denied a credit card for lackof a credit record, you must begin to establish a good record by:

• applying for revolving store credit
• applying for a secured credit card through your bank
• making sure you pay all your bills on time (usually within 15 or 30 days) and bounce no checks. The phone company, electric company and your landlord can impact your credit by reporting you to a credit agency if you are delinquent in your payments.

Secured Credit Card: A secured credit card is backed by a certain amount of money you deposit to the card company in order to use the card. This will help you establish good credit.

How to Get a Copy of Your Credit Report:

Credit cards approve or deny your application by looking at your credit report, kept by several credit reporting agencies.

! If you have been denied credit, you may obtain a FREE copy of your credit report within 6 weeks after being denied.

Check over your credit report to make sure there are no errors. If there are errors, you may write to the credit agency with the error and they will include it in your report.

The main credit reporting agencies are:

• Equifax
• Experian (formerly TRW)
• Trans Union

• Fair Isaac is the credit reporting agency responsible for actually rating your credit. Potential lenders use Fair Isaac's FICO score to determine whether you would be a good credit risk. Factors include your payment history, amount of outstanding balance owed, and the length of your credit history.

• To better understand the factors used to rate you, see myFICO website: http://www.myfico.com/MyFICO/CreditCentral/ScoreConsiders.htm

If you are denied credit because of marks on your credit record, you might consider improving your credit rating by clearing up your debts. Click here for more info on repairing your credit.

Proceed if I am Denied Credit?

Get a Credit Card?

Maintain Good Credit?

Get a Copy of my Credit Report?