Confused as to what plan to purchase

[Chala]

I am in the market for a new car and i would like to come armed with my own credit report and or score, could someone offer me advice as to what plan to purchase for this data? Thanks

[Anonymous]

Hey pal.  It checked into your last couple posts on this site, and it sounds like you are real new to the world of credit, including both reports and scores.  Welcome to this site and good luck on your journey to learn more.

Here's what looks like your last post (from a few months ago):

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Could-not-retrieve-my-FICO-score/td-p/686708

Have you made any progress since then on being able to start pulling your reports and understand them?  My advice is to take things in four stages. 

Stage 1: make sure you have pulled your reports, at least Equifax and TransUnion, and make sure you understand everything on both reports.  Credit Karma is a good free tool that will let you pull both EQ and TU reports for free as often as once per week.  If you don't understand everything about credit reports, start googling for help.  There are plenty of easy to find resources to help you understand how to read credit reports and how they work.

Stage 2: learn some basic stuff about credit scoring.  There is a lot of good stuff available here too.  For example the LEARN ABOUT SCORES link at the top of every myFICO page.  Once you have done some basic homework on learning how scoring works, consider describing your current profile to the people here on myFICO (how many credit cards, when were they opened, what your CC utilization is, any installment loans, any negative items on your reports, etc.) and get some tips on how to improve it.

Stage 3: see if you can implement what you have learned about scoring and any tips you have learned.  For example, it would be in your interest (while you are preparing to look for a car loan) to make sure that all of your credit cards report a zero balance except for one, which ideally would report a small positive balance, like $20 or so.  That's a tip that is easy to implement prettty quickly.

Stage 4:  Once you get your reports looking better, consider subscribing to myFICO's three bureau credit monitoring service, if only for one month.  That service gives you every FICO score under the sun, including lots of auto-specific flavors.

[Chala]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey pal.  It checked into your last couple posts on this site, and it sounds like you are real new to the world of credit, including both reports and scores.  Welcome to this site and good luck on your journey to learn more.

Here's what looks like your last post (from a few months ago):

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Could-not-retrieve-my-FICO-score/td-p/686708

Have you made any progress since then on being able to start pulling your reports and understand them?  My advice is to take things in four stages. 

Stage 1: make sure you have pulled your reports, at least Equifax and TransUnion, and make sure you understand everything on both reports.  Credit Karma is a good free tool that will let you pull both EQ and TU reports for free as often as once per week.  If you don't understand everything about credit reports, start googling for help.  There are plenty of easy to find resources to help you understand how to read credit reports and how they work.

Stage 2: learn some basic stuff about credit scoring.  There is a lot of good stuff available here too.  For example the LEARN ABOUT SCORES link at the top of every myFICO page.  Once you have done some basic homework on learning how scoring works, consider describing your current profile to the people here on myFICO (how many credit cards, when were they opened, what your CC utilization is, any installment loans, any negative items on your reports, etc.) and get some tips on how to improve it.

Stage 3: see if you can implement what you have learned about scoring and any tips you have learned.  For example, it would be in your interest (while you are preparing to look for a car loan) to make sure that all of your credit cards report a zero balance except for one, which ideally would report a small positive balance, like $20 or so.  That's a tip that is easy to implement prettty quickly.

Stage 4:  Once you get your reports looking better, consider subscribing to myFICO's three bureau credit monitoring service, if only for one month.  That service gives you every FICO score under the sun, including lots of auto-specific flavors.

That post unfortunately is from Five years ago, not a couple of months ago. Also unfortunately I have not improved my situation since, but tomorrow I will be hitting several car dealerships in searching for a car. After reading some articles on here I thought it might be good to have my FICO score as well as my  FICO Auto Industry Option score. I understand the FICO Ultimate 3B report with do just that, even if it's just for one month, is that right? At least I will have some information on my score before walking into these dealerships tomorrow. Thanks for responding!

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[Anonymous]

Hey, sorry I misread the year!  Yep, I think the myFICO product is your best option.

I will suggest that if you haven't improved your situation at all, I still think Stages 1-3 are important for you.  If you go with buying the MF product now, you might want to keep it active for four months and plan to work hard on improving your reports and scores during the next 89 days.  After that I think MF is supposed to give you a whole new set of scores.  (They do it quarterly now?)

[Chala]

Yes it says quarterly, I will purchase that plan, and I maybe I will take your advice on keeping it open. I will also go into the dealerships tomorrow armed with this article courtesy of myFICO http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Auto-Loans/FICO-Auto-Enhanced-Scores/td-p/228198

Thank you so much for the quick response :-)

[Anonymous]

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@Chala wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey pal.  It checked into your last couple posts on this site, and it sounds like you are real new to the world of credit, including both reports and scores.  Welcome to this site and good luck on your journey to learn more.

Here's what looks like your last post (from a few months ago):

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Could-not-retrieve-my-FICO-score/td-p/686708

Have you made any progress since then on being able to start pulling your reports and understand them?  My advice is to take things in four stages...

That post unfortunately is from Five years ago, not a couple of months ago. Also unfortunately I have not improved my situation since, but tomorrow I will be hitting several car dealerships in searching for a car. After reading some articles on here I thought it might be good to have my FICO score as well as my  FICO Auto Industry Option score. I understand the FICO Ultimate 3B report with do just that, even if it's just for one month, is that right? At least I will have some information on my score before walking into these dealerships tomorrow. Thanks for responding!

1, Best of luck to you, I mean it,.

2. In 5 years you have been unable to improve your financial situation or improve your understanding of your financial situation and you are about to buy the fastest devaluating "thing" you can get a loan for? (A new car, from a dealer)

3.  Please consider paying cash for a used car, and continue your financial education improvement journey.

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[Chala]

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@Anonymous wrote:

3.  Please consider paying cash for a used car, and continue your financial education improvement journey.

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Thats not an option

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[Anonymous]

Hi Chala.  There may be a glitch in the QUOTE button.  Your last post identified me as saying:

3.  Please consider paying cash for a used car, and continue your financial education improvement journey.

I think that's a conversation you are having with CreditIsImportant at this point.  I haven't posted in this discussion for a little while.  Best wishes...