Consumer Reports – July 2021
English | 69 pages | pdf | 20.54 MB
Welcome at Consumer Reports Magazine July 2021 Issue
IN COLLEGE I once had a summer job at a department store. As a perk, it offered employees a store credit card. Naturally, I was excited, but I recall my father tempering my enthusiasm with a talk on how important it was to build my credit history. I can’t say I fully appreciated what he meant at that time, but it was clear that how I used a credit card could either open or close financial opportunities for me in the future. But that lesson left out an important fact: The big companies that trace my financial history to create my unique credit score can get it wrong.
Your credit score ties directly into so many facets of your life, enabling you to buy a home, get a job, and procure an auto or personal loan. Because of that, you would think that it is a transparent process, understandable to every consumer.
But as we reveal in “How to Fix Your Credit Score,” on page 36, this couldn’t be further from the truth. For far too many, building up and improving one’s credit is a never-ending labyrinth. Even small errors can sometimes have big negative effects on your credit score, putting a temporary halt on achieving your financial dreams, a recent Consumer Reports study found.
Understanding the fluctuations in your credit score, and what you can do to ensure the strongest possible score, is precisely the kind of trusted information you depend on getting as a member of Consumer Reports. Your membership also helps us to advocate for needed changes so that you’re not alone in protecting your score.
We will keep working hard to ensure that mistakes by banks and credit bureaus don’t harm consumers. With us pushing for reforms to increase equity and transparency in how scores are determined and altered, everyone can thrive in the marketplace and trust that they have the opportunity to build and improve their credit score.
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