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Beacon Credit Score Keeping Track Of It

In these times of a tough economy, it is more important than ever to keep a handle on your credit rating. If your score is less than you think it should be or would like it to be, now is the time to do something about it. If you have ever tried to correct or improve your credit score on your own, however, you know how difficult, time consuming, and frustrating the process can be. You also probably realize that there are three different major credit-reporting agencies – TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian – and they usually have different scores for the same person; they often have conflicting information as well.

Banks and other lenders are getting more stringent in their lending requirements, so it just makes sense to get and keep the best score you can. The credit score we are all so familiar with is known as the FICO credit score, but Equifax, one of the three major agencies, refers to the FICO as the Beacon score. TransUnion calls it the Empirica score, and Experian refers to it as the Experian/Fair, Isaac Risk model. Even though there are different names, beacon credit score, empirica credit score, and experian credit score, they are all basically the same thing – a numerical ranking that identifies your creditworthiness.

The different reporting agencies are likely to have slightly different scores for the same person, however. The reasons for this are twofold: First, not all lenders and financial institutions report to each credit bureau; therefore, the different companies may not all have the same information. Second, each agency may have a slightly different way of calculating the score. These minor differences don’t usually make that much of a difference and are not usually a concern because banks realize the scores will be different, so they just use an average of the three scores. That being said, it is possible that the difference in scores might be very different if one of the agencies does not have information that is quite important, such as accurate mortgage information.

How do you find out what your credit score is? You can go to the Equifax website to get your report and beacon credit score and visit the websites of the other two agencies to get your report there, too. You are also entitled by law to get one free credit report from each of the bureaus once a year. The website for that is www.annualcreditreport.com. Using this free resource is always a good idea, as it is good to know what information is contained in your history. The most important reason for keeping up with your credit report is to be sure you fix errors that may negatively impact your rating. Oftentimes, one agency will have the correct information while another will not.

Do not sit around and let others control your destiny. Find out what your beacon credit score is, make sure your credit report is accurate, and consider making efforts to improve your beacon credit score if you want to get the best deals on interest rates and other terms the next time you need to buy a new car or decide to own a home.

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