Any company, organization, or individual with a “legitimate business need” can request to see your credit history, and these requests are known as credit inquiries. They are divided into two categories called hard and soft inquiries — hard inquiries will affect your credit history and credit score while soft inquiries will not.

A FICO Score is a brand of credit score — FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation and Fair Isaac is the company that developed the software program used by the credit bureaus to compile and calculate credit scores for U.S. consumers.

Having at least a 721 credit score will give you a chance to secure some of the best financing options on the market, get preferred interest rates on loans and credit cards, and have more negotiating power when you’re talking terms with a prospective lender.

A new credit scoring model will potentially boost scores for many credit applicants and help establish credit for millions of people who previously had little or no credit history. The new scoring model will be used in the latest version of the VantageScore, the credit score created by the three major credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.

NSF checks (Non Sufficient Funds), also referred as a bounced check are considered bad and will end up on your credit report — lowering your FICO Score and preventing you from obtaining credit.