Your credit score. It could be your worst nightmare, or a dream come true. But most of the time it’s kind of like that nosy mother in law coming to stay at your house for a few days. You know that she is coming to stay, and you are not looking forward to it, but you are too nervous to ask or even consider how long she might be paying you that visit. OK, so that analogy wasn’t that great. But anyway, read on to see just how long negative marks will stay on your credit history.

First, there are errors on your credit score. This occurs when something that you did not do, or an account that does not belong to you shows up on your score when you review it. These will be removed immediately. Finding and removing mistakes on your credit report are an important reason why we should check our credit scores at least once a year. If you do locate a mistake, or a negative account that isn’t yours, get in touch with the credit reporting agency and the creditor too. Within 180 days you should be able to have that negative mark taken off your record.

Anytime a creditor asks to see your credit report (pulls your credit report), something called a hard inquiry will be recorded on your credit score. If these hard inquiries are only occasional this probably won’t hurt. However, if there are a large amount of inquiries recorded on your record, this will generally make prospective creditors think that you need the cash and you need it fast.

If a potential lender looks at your credit score and sees that they are the tenth financial institution that you have asked for credit, they will have cause to be suspicious. Even though the credit reporting gods will concede that people shop around for loans and credit, and say you have, two weeks where you have a lot of inquiries, they will take that into consideration and not penalize you too much, the bottom line is that the more hard inquiries that show up on your report, the lower your score will be. Hard inquiries can stay on your credit report for up to two years.

Not all inquiries will negatively affect your credit score. A soft inquiry is when you check on your own credit score, or when potential creditors check your credit to see if they want to make you any unsolicited offers of credit. Actually, lenders see this as a good sign. If you are regularly checking your credit report, you are most likely fiscally responsible. To be continued in part two…

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles about medical collection agencies.

Debt can be an exhausting problem that weighs you down and affects your personal life greatly. But what if you have exhausted all of your resources and still can’t free up enough money to start repaying your debts in a big way? You still have choices. Perhaps it is time to think about the big things in your life- private schools, your house, and your cars. Are these things truly a necessity? Another option you have is to go through your house and your things and see if there is anything of value to sell. You can go after more money at your current job, or by taking on a second one. And there are still other alternatives yet. Credit counseling and bankruptcy are always available, but you are not there yet, so for now, take a deep breath and determine what you can accomplish on your own.

If you are a parent with children attending private school, consider moving them from private to public. For parents, the thought of moving their children from one school to another can be overwhelming. If this is not something that you as a parent are willing to do, you can always see about applying for financial assistance from your current school.

It is also possible that your living environment is sabotaging your ability to make ends meet. Just last decade, we were afraid that if we did not purchase at the very moment that we would be priced out of the only neighborhood we wanted to live in. It’s a hard decision, but it very well may be that selling your home is a solution that you have to consider. While it is a conventional pearl of wisdom that your house is the asset you’ll retire on, and the most valuable asset in your portfolio, unless you can afford to make the payments, it’s also going to be the one that can be your downfall. Switching a larger house for less expensive can be an option, but you also may need to consider renting for a while. Bear in mind that if you can keep the cost of moving low, renting will save you the cost of homeowner’s insurance. (Renter’s insurance is much less expensive.) Other things you will save money on include yard care, and commuting costs if you can find the right location to rent from.

If you can wrap your head around it, there is probably another, less expensive way for you to get back and forth to work each day. Think about it. Could you get by without a car for a while? Not only would it save you the expenses of paying for the car itself, and it’s upkeep (oil changes, repairs etc) but think about all of the money that goes to parking, insurance and gasoline. And if you feel as though you cannot go without a car, what about trading in your expensive car for one that runs just fine but is used?

Many times, simply thinking outside of the box is all that it takes to get yourself out of a situation that you find is difficult. If you take a calm approach to your situation with an open mind, you may find that the solution comes easier to you than you ever thought possible.

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles about nationwide collection agencies

From 1999 to 2009, premium costs for family insurance have risen by one hundred and thirty one percent. That’s easily over three times the rate at which wages rose during this time. In the recession, millions of jobs have been lost, putting workers who just lost their jobs at risk of also living without health insurance. For those who remain employed, employers are pushing more of the costs of health insurance onto their workers as they struggle with economic uncertainty. Then there are blue collar and retail workers, waitresses and the like who are paid less, work harder and are not offered health insurance plans at their jobs. No wonder that Americans are struggling to pay their medical bills.

In 2007, about seventy two million Americans struggled with their medical bills. A large amount of these people made paying off their medical bills their top priority, while they had to struggle to pay for basic necessities like food, rent or heat. More than THIRTY MILLION American adults used up ALL of their savings or BORROWED AGAINST THEIR HOMES in order to pay off medical bills. Unfortunately, in this time of economic hardship, many Americans could not stop the bill collector from knocking on their door.

Thirty million Americans are being contacted every year by collection companies for unpaid medical bills; many people struggle to pay these. Most people are unclear as to why their insurance refused to pay a claim, others are confused about the amount they owe. Over half of people who were surveyed said that they were puzzled by the medical jargon on their bills, and one in four said confusion led them to allow bills to go past the due date or to be sent to a collection agency.

A medical bill that gets sent to collections will usually be reported to credit bureaus. This results in a lower credit score. Medical accounts, even those that have been paid off in full will remain on a credit report for up to seven years. This will result in lower credit scores and increases the costs of mortgages, car loans, or credit card interest.

Luckily, Ohio Congresswoman Kilroy understood the ramifications of unpaid medical bills. She decided to take action because she saw medical debt as something that was unique. She introduced The Medical Debt Relief Act, which states that medical debt that is fully paid off or settled must be removed from a consumer’s credit report within thirty days.

Even though this will not fix our chaotic healthcare system, it will provide relief for those who have paid off medical debt, while the rest of us wait for better health care reform.

Rapid Recovery Solution is a credit collection agency.

Last Thursday, a man who ran a debt buying company in Florida was sentenced to six years of federal prison time for the crime of selling debt portfolios that he did not own. Steven Goldberg, of Golberg and Associates in Boca Raton, took the heat from the District Judge who slapped him with 71 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. Goldberg pled guilty to one count of mail fraud and eight counts of wire fraud.

Authorities say that Goldberg would turn over falsified files and fake evidence that he owned the files to other companies. To add insult to injury, Goldberg also sent buyers fake transaction numbers and other bogus financial information. All in all, debt buyers were taken for more than $3.3 million. Investigative reports showed that many well-respected accounts receivable management companies were hoodwinked.

Parties involved were the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Boca Raton Police Department. Federal criminal charges against Goldberg have been satisfied, but there are still many many civil cases pending against him.

Although the federal criminal charges against Goldberg have been satisfied, there are still numerous civil cases pending against him. An official from a major collections company weighed in with his opinion.

“Our industry doesn’t do a great job of policing itself,” he said. “Debt buying companies should be more vigilant when they screen members for criminal backgrounds. Goldberg had prior convictions, including felonies.”

The debt collection industry can do many things to protect itself, experts believe. Publishing a list of any lawsuits that one member files against another member, or requiring criminal background checks would be good ideas. Either way, Goldberg has a long vacation in jail scheduled, and when he gets out, you better believe that any money he owes in Civil Court will be aggressively collected.

Mallory Megan is employed by a debt collection agency. She also writes stories on business, finance, consumer spending and collection agencies.