Take Control: News About Our Credit Scores

[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's Take Control Tuesday and that means I have Manta Moosa on the phone with me from moneysmartlife.org Mansa I'm so excited about this topic because I found out some stuff I didn't know. And it's some breaking news on credit scores. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Yeah. There are some things that have changed on credit reporting in this month in March, and we want to keep the people updated on what to do on credit reports. Now we have something different than we've had before. All those buy now, pay later loans that you see when you shop online and in stores now, they're now starting to report on your credit report. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Oh. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Now that impacts your credit score in a number of ways. Number one, every account that's open is new credit. [00:00:51] Speaker A: Oh. [00:00:52] Speaker B: New credit pulls down your average credit age and that will lower your, your score. [00:00:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:00] Speaker B: The other thing is there's no limit on how many of these you have. So if you have a lot of these, they're churning on your credit report. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:01:10] Speaker B: And once again, that new activity is pulling your score down. And it also, when you pay it off, it shows up as a closed account. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:01:21] Speaker B: Which once again can have an impact on your score. So when it comes to buy now, pay later short term loans, my advice is to stay away from them. They impact your score, they make it too easy to get into debt, and you're generally using them for things that are not durable. So if you're by using them for fast food or other things, as we've talked about, that product is long gone by the time you start paying for it. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Exactly. I talked about that on the air, man. Stay away from the buy now, pay later. Especially if you're buying food. And it does, it impacts everything that you do. Because if you don't have the money in the first place, now you're stretching your budget if you have one even more. [00:02:10] Speaker B: Absolutely. And putting yourself at risk. Right. Because the chickens do come home to roost, as they say. Now the other thing, and this is real big news for anybody that has metal collections on their credit report. First of all, you want to go to annualcreditreport.com and pull your credit report. Check it for all three bureaus. You ought to be doing this every year anyway. But you especially want to do it now if you haven't done it, because as of March 17th of 2025, all medical collections must be removed from your credit report by law. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Wow. [00:02:50] Speaker B: So if you've got medical collections on your credit report, medical debt, and I know how that damages people's credit. Act now and check your credit report. And if you see medical debt on there, dispute it. Yes, it will come off. Here's the other thing about medical debt. Get it off your credit report. But understand, just because you get it off your credit report doesn't mean you don't owe it. [00:03:16] Speaker A: Right? [00:03:17] Speaker B: The statute of limitations in your state governs how long someone can try to collect that debt. In Michigan, it's six years. So if you have any medical debt that is less than six years old, you are still required to pay it. They can go through all the necessary collection activities for you to pay them. So once Again, go to annualcreditreport.com, check your credit report, look for any medical debt, medical collections, and if you have it, dispute it immediately. Because the other thing, Randy, there's already a bill in Congress to reverse this. Oh, okay. They've already got it going. They want medical debt on your credit report. I don't know why, but people do. So act now. Get it off. Once you get it off, I don't think it'll come back. [00:04:13] Speaker A: That's a lot. That's heavy. And make sure that you act on this right now. Manta always has the information that we need. And those were great breaking news articles. And we'll have more that you can deep dive into on the website at takecontroltuesday. Com. Manta, as always, thank you so much. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Thank you.