How is your Credit Score is hurting you?

Have you received a letter from your credit card company raising your rate, or cancelling your coard, or reducing your available credit?

Alot of us have. And it is hurting.

Remember that when you have a balance on your credit card and your available credit goes down your debt to available credit ratios go up and this will hurt your scoring which means you may not qualify for a loan.

Also, I have received a lot emails/calls/visits from people who have been foreclosed and now cannot rent since their credit score is severely damaged.
I think something has to be done so that your Credit Score is not the only factor to exclude you from the renter pool.

10 Years Later, Do Banks have an image problem.

Hi everyone: I found this article from 1995 asking whether Banks Have An Image Problem.
Well it was true then and it is true now.

The reality is that banks are there to make money and when things go bad they have the U.S. Government to bail them out. Isn't this true. You read and and you decide:

Here is the article excerpt:

Do Banks Have an Image Problem? You Decide
Journal article; ABA Banking Journal, Vol. 87, 1995
Journal Article Excerpt
Do banks have an image problem? You decide
It's not as though banks have suddenly become financial pariahs. The industry is still a force to be reckoned with. Take the fact that 80% of bank customers consider commercial banks to be their primary financial institutions. That's welcome news, especially considering the many alternatives consumers have for financial services these days. Bankers can also feel good that 65% of these same consumers are very satisfied with their primary institution.
But before you conclude that all is well with the banking world, consider: Of this same group of bank users, 41% thought the loan process was difficult; 49% did not think banking fees were appropriate; only 33% strongly agreed that banks provide good value for the money; and only 31% strongly agreed that bankers care about their communities. Nothing to feel real good about there.
That's a sample of the intriguing and sometimes contrasting findings that came out of a major study of consumer attitudes and knowledge of banking commissioned by the American Bankers Association. If the results could be summarized in a one-sentence letter from a typical consumer to his bank, it might read like this:
"Dear Bank:
I know you're important, and I use you, but I don't particularly like you or believe you when you tell me about all the good work you do."
A nagging sense of trouble
The study was conducted last fall by the Gallup Organization, Princeton, N.J., at the behest of the ABA Communications Council. Comprising 19 bank CEOs and bank public affairs officers, the council had been wrestling with the issue of banking's image for some time.
"There's no shortage of banking research," notes Thomas G. Strohm, 1994-95 council chairman and executive vice-president, Meridian Bancorp, Reading, Pa., "but some of...
more info read:
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=JGXWBWJ6xRlDmJLVhhJTy4WW9MxFTjCqYv5VQM5xrsBtX6mfCwlv!381329073?docId=5000353054

"We the People...Have Had Our Trust Broken"

I listen to the news on TV and radio. I read the news on the Internet, Newspapers and Magazines. I listen to our Great but Distasteful Congress members and senators and other politicians spit words out and I just don’t believe their words. I don’t believe in what I read anymore.

The issue is trust. Just a few weeks ago our government and business leaders were telling us that we were the strongest economy, that the “signs” looked good. And then things just starting crashing, one thing right after another.

With the talk of help, of bailouts, the average American has been left to fend for herself.

Where’s the help to us, The People of These Great United States Have Had our Trust and Spirit Broken.

Do banks care about the unbearable stress in you lifre and impact on your family

It's easy to get the numbers: X foreclosures, X sales down, X bank failures, X unemployeement, etc. But what about the human toll on us all. What about the physical, psychological stress of the economy, of losing your house, your car, your job.

This economic crises has hit us all like a bullet. The government kept telling us that everything was ok, that the "fundamentals" were ok. But they lied.
And know, I have clients, family members, friends and myself unable to sleep. I worry how will I pay my mortgage if I lose my job. How will I help my brothers and sisters? What about the extra money I normally give my mother for additional food and medicines?

I feel sick. I feel scared. I feel like crying. And yet I have to go on and figure out what do next!

How your credit report can then kill you after your foreclosure has destroyed you.

Ok. So the bank has foreclosed on your house. So you think the worst is over and you start clean. After the stress, the hearthaches, embarassment, time, the anger, the feeling lonely, the fear you think that the worst is over. Wrong.

Did you notice that while you where late on paying your mortgage, your credit cards raised their rates, o cancelled your credit cards. Did you notice that you were being rejected for Jobs, for renting a house, an apartment?

The damage continues due to how lenders, banks, employers, landlords use your CREDIT REPORT. Your credit history, your credit score will continue to destroy you even after your foreclosure or your bankruptcy.

And yet nothing is being done! What we need is a freeze on what credit reports report and how this information is being used.

Ooops. It's not our fault the economy is in recession.

I am still angry, and upset and feel that we have been lied to by our government and wall street.
And I am angry that congress is still not coming up clean and has not offered a solution that helps us the average person. Do you think that Wall Street executives or Nancy Pelosi, or Boxer or Feinstein or Bush, or Paulson feel the pain that we feel paying $4.00 per gallon of gas, paying our dental and doctor bills...Do they really care that we have to choose between having a cell phone, home line, cable or DSL, or eating?
And all paulson can say "Sorry for the mistakes."


Paulson regrets mistakes on economy
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
Thursday, October 16, 2008
(10-16) 09:01 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Thursday expressed regret for the many errors made that led to the biggest financial crisis in seven decades, but he insisted the administration is pursuing the correct course now to end the debacle.

"We're not proud of all the mistakes that were made by many different people, different parties, failures of our regulatory system, failures of market discipline that got us here," Paulson said in an interview on Fox Business Network.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/10/16/financial/f080421D41.DTL&tsp=1

How Congress pushed Fannie Mae to extreme loans

Here is great article on Fannie and how it got into the mess its in. Perhaps, it wasn't even its fault. It seems that it was pushed to extreme loans by Congress:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05fannie.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print


October 5, 2008, The New York Time
Pressured to Take More Risk, Fannie Reached Tipping Point
By CHARLES DUHIGG
“Almost no one expected what was coming. It’s not fair to blame us for not predicting the unthinkable.“— Daniel H. Mudd, former chief executive, Fannie Mae
When the mortgage giant Fannie Mae recruited Daniel H. Mudd, he told a friend he wanted to work for an altruistic business. Already a decorated marine and a successful executive, he wanted to be a role model to his four children — just as his father, the television journalist Roger Mudd, had been to him.
Fannie, a government-sponsored company, had long helped Americans get cheaper home loans by serving as a powerful middleman, buying mortgages from lenders and banks and then holding or reselling them to Wall Street investors. This allowed banks to make even more loans — expanding the pool of homeowners and permitting Fannie to ring up handsome profits along the way.
But by the time Mr. Mudd became Fannie’s chief executive in 2004, his company was under siege. Competitors were snatching lucrative parts of its business. Congress was demanding that Mr. Mudd help steer more loans to low-income borrowers. Lenders were threatening to sell directly to Wall Street unless Fannie bought a bigger chunk of their riskiest loans.

Who got rich and elected in this Bail Out and Crises

OK. So the President signed the bill, the Senate and House passed Wall Street Bail out to rescue Fannie Mae and Fredie Mac?
Apparently, "they know better than we do." But it is our money and yet we get no help. I am still seeing people on daily basis losing their jobs, credit card letters cancelling credit cards and equity lines gone: even from people who have not been late or in default.

This really shows that there is difference between the Democrates and Republicans. They along with the Banks don't care.
See Foxnews program which politican benefited from the support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432522,00.html
This is an excellent overview by reporter David Asman and politics and way Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Schumer wanted this passed.

Burn the Credit Cards

Do you really think that if the Bail Out is not passed or credit is squeezed or not available that Banks will starve? NO!! The banks will survive and those that don't deserve to die...But we know that banks will come up with new products, Wall street will invent new junk products to sell to greedy investors(us all), and we will be brainwashed to use these new products.

Let's stop using Credit Cards. What's wrong with living within out means...
Why do I need 4 HDTVs, 2 cards, etc.

Wake up...This may be a positive and shocking awakening we need to realize the trap we have fallen into.

The Arrogance of our Senators

Yesterday before the vote I email my senators( CA Feinstein, Boxer) pleading with them to not vote for the Wall Street Bail Out. Did they listen? NO.
How arrogant that our Senators think they know what the "common" hard working person feels!
The bail out may help and it may not. That not point. We don't know.
Wall Street crashed and recovered.

My point is that we should look at alternatives. Why rush into this costly project. What happened to free enterprise? If we are going to start nationalizing companies, then lets start with: 1. Free Healthcare to everyone 2. Free Education to everyone.
Wouldn't this be investing in the national population and just on the rich?

How can a senator know more than us? So far they have proven unable to lead.