Benefits of increasing credit score

Increasing your credit score without leaving your home is a very easy task to do, and something that can greatly improve your financial reputation in the process. We all know that a big part of the American dream is to own a home, but that can be quite a difficult thing if you have already put yourself in a poor credit situation. The problem of poor credit score can affect your financial status for a long time indeed. But you have to make the right effort to make your credit score better. Even making negligible corrections or closing a smaller account can have a remarkable effect on a credit score.

Regardless of the fact that credit reports are so relied on, they can often include mistakes, omissions or other faults that affect a score. If you re-examine your credit report and notice that you have a credit account listed twice, missing payment information or maybe even an account that you thought was closed you can increase your credit score. The credit reporting agencies rely on credit companies to furnish them with precise information; they do not make alterations to the statistics, which is completely up to you.

So how do you go about fixing the errors on a credit report? The process is actually rather simple; just contact the financial institution you have your account with and ask for the problem to be corrected. You will not see immediate results on your credit report so it is important that you continue to receive updated reports and look for the corrections.

If you are serious about repairing your credit and increasing your credit score the last thing you want to do is to delay. Putting off making corrections to a report will only elongate the time you have to wait for your credit score to increase. Notifying your credit company or another agency of an inaccuracy does not take a lot of time and effort on your part and will help you on the road to financial liberty. When you are acquainted with the consequences of having poor credit you will see that waiting for an error to clear or payments to draw level makes no sense.

While you are waiting for your the errors to clear it is always a good idea to look into investment options to and perhaps shift some of your money into a High interest tax free savings account, to save your money and also avoid any taxes on your investments.

How important are collection agencies to the creditors?

Collection agencies are firms that operate in the debt collection industry to collect debts on behalf of creditors. These agencies are usually regulated or governed by Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, commonly referred to as FDCPA. There are many websites that offer a list of collection agencies for hire and you can find out the agencies that operate in your state. Collection agencies play an important role in debt collection. If a creditor has extended a loan to you and for some unknown reasons you fail to make payments to the creditors which make the amount you owe escalate, the creditor may do any one of the following –

The creditor may offer a flat fee to the collection agency to collect the debt on his behalf, give a certain percentage of what is collected as fee to the agency that is collecting the debt or sell the delinquent accounts to the collection agencies for few dollars.

How do collection agencies operate?

The collection agency may contact the debtor in any one of the following ways –

• By telephone
• By sending Demand letters
• Notifying the 3 credit reporting agencies Equifax, TransUnion and Experian
• Legal proceeding

The collection agency will send demand letters to the debtors. The ultimate letter is in form of a warning that may spur the debtor into action. The debtor is usually threatened that a failure to pay will compel collection agencies to report to the 3 credit bureaus

You will come across collection agencies that contact debtors over phone. By doing so, a lot of unpleasantness can be avoided and this also helps collection agencies to maintain a healthy relation with the debtors.

The last resort is a legal proceeding or litigation.

Are all collection agencies reliable?

All collection agencies are not reliable. There are many agencies that violate the FDCPA that need to be followed by a debt collector. Although from a list of collection agencies, you will not be able to identify a collection agency that may take you for a ride, you can go through reviews and rip off reports of many collection agencies for hire. So, if you find that a collection agency is violating the rules, you can report the same to the Attorney general of the state in which you are residing or lodge a complaint with the FTC or Federal Trade Commission.

Trap for Investors (6) - The Best Trading System in the World for Sales

For anyone who has spent some time in the stock market, he/she must has come across some advertisements on selling of outstanding profitable trading system, courses, stock pick, etc. that promise to have your return of investment multiplied a couple of times in short period of time.

Now before we discuss on such advertisements, let me bring out a true story that happened in Niagara Falls:-

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Back on June 30, 1859, a man by the name of Charles Blondin accomplished an amazing feat. He crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope. About 5,000 people had turned out to see his performance as he had ran an ad in the New York Times earlier on.

The rope stretched 1,100 feet (nearly the length of 4 football fields) across the falls at a height of 160 feet (about 16 stories high).

Before Charles began his first attempt to cross the falls, he asked the crowd a question. “How many of you believe I can cross the falls on that tightrope?” The crowd just applauded and cheered to encourage him to start the performance. Charles not only safely made across and back on the tightrope, but also increased the difficult of the performance each time by pushing a wheelbarrow, on stilts and blindfolded.

As the crowd was so amazed with his skill, he then asked “How many of you believe that I can cross the Falls with somebody on my back?” The crowd applauded and cheered this man that they now believe in his ability to do so. Then Charles asked for a volunteer, “Who will volunteer?” The crowd was silent. He then pointed out one man standing nearby, “How about you?” The man replied, ”Hardly, you don’t think I am going to risk my life like that, do you?” and he turn away.

Next Charles pointed out another man, “And what about you?” The man replied, “I believe. In fact, I have no doubt at all.” The man then proceeded to climb on the back of Charles Blondin and they headed across the falls. The crowd waited breathlessly while they crossed and roared their approval once they completed the crossing. What they didn't know was that the man who crossed on Blondin's back was Harry Colcord, his manager.

You see Harry Colcord knew how good Charles Blondin was and fully trusted him. His faith was secure, as the object of his faith, Charles Blondin, was trustworthy and had proven himself so over the years.

Reference: An Illustration of Faith

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Yes. This story is about the "Faith" that we have on "some one" or "some thing". And, let come back to think about "The Best Trading System in the World for Sales"...

If those people, who are selling their Best Trading System, have Faith in their own system that can Multiply on the users' investment in short period of time, why do they just want to sell it for a couple of hundreds or thousands dollar????

One should be aware that for any good system, when it become public, it loses its effectiveness.(<- click here for some back testing results for many popular indicators that are used by the public.) The profits from the stock market are not unlimited. The profits have to tie to the transacted volume. Take for example, some penny stocks can get double, triple or even more in a short time. But if one take into the consideration of actual transacted volume.... He will see that it is only able to feed some speculators, not the major public. That is when a big pool of people want to take the profits, they have to sell the stocks, which would lead to excess supply... and the profits may suddenly vanish if not become negative. :-)

So, are you going to be the volunteer to use the system that the designers themselves do not have the full faith on it?

Well, one will never find peace of mind by letting the financial market to erode their hard-earned money, nor allowing others to determine their job stability in a compnay. And yet one can not simply buy a good trading system to depend on... So, is there any solution to escape the rat race? What about develop your own? If it is to big of a task for one person, why not workout a Master Mind Team to handle a bigger task?

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe,

the mind of man can achieve."

- Napoleon Hill

Finance cartoons

Repair your credit to get financial benefits.

At present more than 35 million US citizens are plagued by bad credit and the various issues related to it. Some of them have started accepting the bad credit reality. Others have embarked on an elongated voyage of financial order and careful budget planning with the ultimate goal to pay off debt in full. There is, however, a small percentage of Americans that have found shorter and easier ways to credit repair. Here are the three most important pillars of fast credit repair.

In the world of credit repair, knowledge is all. Trying to fix your credit without the proper knowledge is hard. You must know how your FICO score is calculated? How to interpret your credit report? Which are the most harmful items in your report? Which are the most essential factors in the credit formula? Do you know how to ask for validation of debt from credit bureaus, collection agencies and original creditors? How to quarrel for imprecise, obsolete, unclear and dubious info in your report? How to get rid of errors in your credit file using the Rapid Rescore policy? How to use your lawful rights mentioned in the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act?

As a consumer, you have an assortment of rights, most of which are specified in the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. For instance, you have the legal privileges to sue credit bureaus if they fail to take action on your written dispute within 30 day, creditors if you dispute a debt and they fail to report it as disputed to credit bureaus, collection agencies if they don't legalize your debt (upon your request), but go on pursuing collection activities.

Just like with any other area in life, credit repair requires vigour and commitment. Collection agencies are not always keen to settle for the amount that you propose. Credit bureaus will not always respect your dispute and remove the disputed item from your record. Original creditors might not be in agreement to remove that one time late payment from your record even after you describe the sad situations surrounding it. In other words you cannot be always hopeful of all credit lights in front of you turning green.

Persistence is a vital part of the credit repair formula. Credit repair requires credit understanding, knowledge of your legal rights and the right amount of diligence and devotion. Once you start opining outside the credit box, you'll be taken aback to find how simple credit repair actually is.

Trap for Investors (5) - Derivatives Market

A friend had forwarded me a very interesting story that illustrates how the derivative markets created the bubbles. (I was told the author is an accountant, but don't know the author's name.)

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Explanation of Derivative Markets

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans). Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then bundled and traded on international security markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the various BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in Government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

Now do you understand?

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And, one more IMPORTANT QUESTION is that:-

Is this was an Accident by mistake or an Intention by design?

There are other effects that the derivative markets have actually affected the traditional stock market operation. Such as:

1) Insiders Buying/Selling information used to be an excellent guide for predicting the short to mid-term price movement. By law, insiders must report their activities for buying or selling stocks. But, with derivatives, insiders can now using put or call options to make profits which need not to be reported. And not to forget that many derivatives such as options are higly leveraged. Therefore, Insiders Buying/Selling information is not so much useful as compare to the past.

2) As people are now able to use puts and calls to profit from the market, the classical Tape Reading Technique is no more as accurate as the past.

In real life, many of those who lack of money are not because that they don't know how to make money. They are lacking of money mainly because they don't spend their money wisely and more critically is that they do wrong investment with their money.

"The state of being rich is not how much money you had already

earned in the past, but how fast you can have it grown

against the inflation in the future."

-KH Tang

Some helpful techniques that you can use to make quick cash

If you’re trying to make some more money for a holiday trip or to provide for the needs of your family, then you should follow some useful techniques. Making quick cash is not difficult if you know the basics. The Internet is a valuable resource that lets you know about different techniques that you can adopt to make quick cash.

Techniques that you can use to make quick cash

Some techniques for making quick cash are given below:

Become a freelance writer: Look for freelance writing jobs. You don’t have to be an expert in English to become a freelance writer. You can write and sell your articles at different forums and make some quick money.

Auction items online: You can sell items on Ebay. This is also a popular technique to make quick cash online. You can really make significant gains by selling things on Ebay. See what items are in demand and try to auction them.

Become an affiliate marketer: This is one of the best means to make quick money online. When you become an affiliate marketer, you’re basically marketing products of other people over the Internet. When somebody buys that product, you receive a commission. You can enjoy unlimited income by doing this.

Perform a garage sale: If you have some useless items that you no longer need, you can sell them off to make some quick money. Advertise about the garage sale in your locality.

Sell your digital photos: If you’re a photographer, you can sell your digital photos at various freelance photography websites. You need not be a professional photographer. If the pictures are clear and attention-grabbing, you can make some money by selling them.

There are various ways to make quick cash. Choose the one that is best for you.