Chapter 5. How do I protect, improve, or repair my FICO Credit Score?

The best protection for your FICO score is to adhere to respecting the factors used to calculate the score. You also need to monitor your credit report to prevent any identity theft that could destroy your financial reputation very quickly (which may take a long time to repair). As you review your credit report, pay close attention to the identity and personal information including your social security number, address or locations of your residence, list of accounts in good standing, inquiries, public records, and potentially all negative items on your report. Keep in mind the CRAs update their information at different times and periodically. They use increments to report your information in 30, 60, 90, and 120 days and they update accordingly.

 

How to

To protect, improve, or repair your FICO score, you need to watch for the following activities on your credit report and how long it would affect. 

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It is to your advantage to adhere to the basic financial literacy principles which can help keep you in good standing with lenders and grantors. Credit should be used as a convenience not as a source of income.

 

Practice

Now that you know how to protect, improve, and repair your FICO score, think of paying it forward and discuss your experience with a friend or a family member.

 

Congratulations! Now Test your knowledge about the FICO score!

Would you like to review again? You can start over at Introduction.
To review the full module on the FICO score, click here.

 

The Penn State Sokolov-Miller Family Financial and Life Skills Center hopes you have enjoyed this module in the MoneyCounts: A Penn State Financial Literacy Series. Please tell us how we can serve you better, leave us a feedback, ask a question, or request additional information at: finlit@psu.edu