Put a fraud alert on your credit report. Under new federal law, fraud alerts take on an increased importance. If you think that you might be the victim of identity theft, you can have a fraud alert placed upon your credit report at the credit reporting agencies. The alert stays on your report for up to ninety days but can be extended for up to seven years. When a fraud alert has been put on your credit report, you are entitled to a second free credit report during that year in order to monitor your credit for further irregularities. In the past, people placing a fraud alert on their credit reports found that to be effective, they had to call each of the three major credit reporting agencies to have fraud alerts independently placed on each company's record. Now under FACT (the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act), all you need to do is call one of the credit reporting agencies and they are required to notify the other two to place the fraud alert on your file.
Go to the Federal Trade Commission web site to obtain the FTC's ID Theft Affidavit and use it to report the crime.
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If you've had trouble paying off credit cards in the past, you may be tempted to return your card to the credit card company along with a few not-too-well-chosen words. But closing out accounts may negatively affect your credit, since the credit agencies consider the ratio of total debts to total available credit. So keep the paid-off card while remembering that there's no law that says you have to use it. In fact, the best way to retaliate against the credit card company is to not use the card. They don't collect any fees from the establishments that accept your card, and they don't collect any interest off you. If you eventually want to close out some charge accounts, do it slowly, starting with the most recently acquired accounts. You should keep your older accounts open because they show that you have a longer credit history.
Special note to those with a particularly checkered credit history.
If you have had some severe problems in the past, perhaps including loan charge-offs or bankruptcy, don't despair. (If you had to file for personal bankruptcy, you're not alone. In the past decade, more than one out of every ten U.S. households went bankrupt.) You can |
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Begin your search.
Almost 80 percent of all home searches begin on the Internet. You can search through literally hundreds of online listings, take virtual tours, and view photographs of neighborhoods and homes. The Internet can be a valuable resource to help you narrow your search. Be realistic in your search. While location is important, so is affordability. First-time home buyers often have to settle on housing that isn't quite as nice as the home they grew up in. But that's okay. The goal is getting into a home. You can always trade up later on if you must.
Negotiation.
When it's time for negotiations, it's the time to hold your emotions in check. You obviously want the home, but until you have purchased it, it's just a house. If this is the first time you've purchased a home, be sure to enlist the assistance of family members or friends who have purchased houses in the past. Otherwise, you can rest assured that you'll pay too much. Negotiation need not be an unpleasant experience. Stressful, yes; unpleasant, not necessarily. Understanding the reason the seller is selling can be helpful and give you some perspective. If the seller is particularly anxious to sell, for |
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