What Is Your prestige Rating Now?
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If you have any payment accounts now, or have ever borrowed from the bank to buy a car, or if you ar paying on a mortgage, there is prestige facts on you.
Up until a few years ago, you could only guess at what your prestige rating was, because the prestige bureaus who keep track of borrowers wouldn't tell the borrowers anything! But that's been changed through several laws, and now the bureaus have to send you your prestige file when you ask it.
If you've been denied prestige on the basis of their record, they will send you a copy of that article without charge, if you ask it within 30 days of the prestige denial. If you haven't been denied prestige but just want to know what your file says, you must pay a small fee to find out.
Why You honestly Must Get Your prestige Report...
It is well worth your issue to accumulate your report. You may well find (because thousands do) that there is a piece of misinformation that is injuring you without your knowing it, which you can straighten out by submitting copies of documentary proof (never mail originals of anything important - it may get lost in the mail) of bills paid, payments made, etc.
What To Do If You Are "Unlisted"
If, for one presuppose or another, you are not listed, or they have insufficient facts on you to "rate" your suitability for credit, you must take steps to literal, this.
What To Do If You're New in Town
If you have no article because you hold no cards and have no payment accounts, or because you have just come in from out-of-town, then you'd great start assembling one. It may sound a itsybitsy ridiculous, but nobody will lend money to someone's who's all the time paid cash! You have to have borrowed money or run up charges and paid them back to be able to borrow larger sums as time goes along.
Start with the local merchants in your immediate area, the ones that already know you.
Even if you don't need it right now, ask them if you can set up a payment list with them. In most cases they'll be glad to oblige you, they already know you're local, and that you patronize them regularly. When you get the credit, payment a few items each week, and pay your list abruptly when presented. In this way, you'll build up a good prestige article with these merchants in a short time.
Get Your Bank In on the Act
Go to the bank where you keep your checking account, and ask to borrow a nominal sum (say 0), which they are unlikely to refuse you.
Do this even if you don't need the money, because you do need the refund article on their books. Repay the loan on a regular basis when due.
Do not accelerate, and pay it all back the next month. Strangely adequate the banks do not like that, because to them that indicates a "feast or famine" situation, rather than a steady payer.
The interest cost on this loan, even if you have no need for the money, will be well worth paying to build up your prestige record. Besides, you can minimize this interest cost by depositing the money you have borrowed (assuming you do not immediately need it), in a savings account, and collecting the interest, which will defray a good part of the cost of the interest you are paying.
Once these payment accounts and the loan have been operating for a while, lope to stage two, and ask a large local department store for a payment account. Most likely they will be happy to give you their payment card.
Build up your rating with them by occasional purchases and prompt payment, and then you lope to stage three, and apply for the less selective national prestige cards, master payment and Visa, which you should a this point be able to get without too much difficulty.
On the Road
Once you have national bank credit, it's easy to get prestige from all the oil companies, which makes traveling around a cash-free pleasure. Some gas stations take national cards like master Charge, but most only take their own prestige cards, so you should not overlook these, just because you already have others.
First Class With No Cash
Once you have all the other cards, a paid-up loan or two, and a fine article of abruptly paying your bills, you may be able to get the most selective cards of all, the "travel and entertainment" cards.
These are American Express, Diners' Club and Carte Blanche. These cards control on a dissimilar system than ordinary retail store cards, or the national bank cards, both of which are revolving prestige plans on which you pay a small amount each month, until your equilibrium is all paid up.
The store or bank hopes you take a long time to pay, because they make their money on the 1 1/2% monthly (which is 18% yearly!) finance and, or interest charges.
The T&E cards, however, expect you to pay your bills at the end of the month! Let your list get 60 days or more delinquent, and they'll cancel you out as fast as a flash of lightning. Although these cards do not payment interest, they do payment you a fee for membership.
Let Me Entertain You
So how do you get these qualified bits of plastic that open up the doors of exotic nightspots in Tangiers as honestly as your around Howard Johnson's? Your good prestige record, that you have already established, will be the most help.
Since the T&E habitancy want you to pay your bills abruptly each month, they want to know that you have a steady article of paying bills abruptly to other people.
So first American Express, or Carte Blanche, or Diners' Club, looks at your prestige record. Then at your wages or other income. Most of them have cut-off points below which they will not grant their cards. But even if you earn more than their minimum requirements, they don't automatically okay you for their credit...
They look at your stability!
How do they quantum stability? How long have you worked on your gift job? If you don't have a minimum of two years of steady work in one place, they may not consider you at all. How long have you lived at your gift address? At your previous address? And do you rent an apartment which means you could move tomorrow, or do you own your own house, which means you will probably still be in the same place next year. How carport is your livelihood? Do habitancy in your field of work get laid off frequently?
Now You Can honestly Start to Live!
Once you have all the major national prestige cards in your wallet, you can live like the millionaires do, even though you haven't yet become one.
You can go into a fancy store, or even call them on the telephone, and order those fabulous luxuries which make life so much more exciting, like furs and diamonds, for your loved one, or new furniture or appliances for your living room, bedroom or kitchen.
All of this can come true in the fabulous world of credit.
Now in today's world you can payment almost anything on a prestige card, from admission to a medical care at a hospital in Atlanta, university courses in New York City, funerals in Los Angeles, and even the services of legal prostitutes in Las Vegas.
Erasing the Bad Marks
But what do you do if you haven't been able to pay your bills promptly, or you've run up more than you can handle, or you don't have a very carport work history? Do you have to give up the dreams of credit-card living? Not entirely!
Once you find out which prestige conditions in your background are the most troublesome (from the prestige article you have already sent for), you then start to create new conditions that you can then base your records on.
If you were out of work, perhaps you can get a reference from person you know who owns a enterprise and is willing to say that you worked for him, if the prestige card enterprise checks your references.
If your bills are too high, and you've missed a few payments, perhaps you should see one of the free consumer- counseling services that are springing up in the larger cities which will enable you to concentrate your debts into a manageable amount.
Remember that prestige card companies don't care very much about the amount you owe, but they care a lot about whether you pay steadily, every particular month, even if the amount each month is small, and the entire debt will take years to pay off!
Don't overlook ways to design good prestige without buying anything!...
For example, you have telephone assistance in your own name, you have a article of paying bills to them which is then part of your prestige record. The same for your gas and galvanic supplies from you local group utilities. These services, when they are in your name, will show prospective merchants that you do have a article of paying bills, even if you haven't yet established retail store or bank credit.
Using Your prestige to Save Cash!
The world of prestige has one more trick you should know about, this one that honestly saves you money right on the spot.
All you have to do is carry your prestige cards with you when you go out shopping, even if you intend to pay by cash. Then you have to keep an eye open for the smaller, personal service-type shops, where the boss himself, or one of the partners, is all the time gift (you'll see why in a minute).
As you walk in, check out the decals on the door to see which prestige cards they accept.
Then adopt your purchase in the way you commonly would - taking your usual care to be sure you're getting the right item at the right price.
When the deal's all set, furnish your prestige card (one of those you know he takes), and say "I'd like to payment it, please!"
At this, the merchant's face will probably drop about six feet, but he'll take your card and walk over to the imprinting motor (or maybe to the telephone to check your prestige status).
He hasn't got much choice, he has to take your card if he uses their decal in the window. But the point is, he hates to, because he has to pay the prestige card enterprise a ration of the sale, commonly somewhere between 6% and 10%.
Now, while he's vulnerable, is the time to hit him with a casually dropped remark like "say, how about knocking 5% off the price, and I'll pay cash instead?" The chances are he'll accept your offer, because it saves him the other part of the prestige card enterprise percentage, and because it saves him bookkeeping chores, and waiting from 3 to 7 days for his money to be credited to him by the prestige card company.
The presuppose why this gimmick doesn't work in big market is that the clerk doesn't give a damn what it costs the boss, and has no authority to take an additional ration off the price, so he'll just go ahead and write up your prestige card invoice.
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A No-Brainer Way Of Getting credit And credit Cards
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