When you close the credit-card account that you’ve had the longest, it will lower the average age of your credit accounts and drag down your FICO Score.

Just because you settled with a car loan company after a car repossession, that doesn’t mean that they have to remove it from your Equifax, Experian or TransUnion reports.

Portfolio Recover Associates is a collection agency who claims their communication is an attempt to collect a debt.

Credit Sesame is a Website that helps people manage their credit — its offering users free credit monitoring, a service that the big three credit bureaus offer for a fee. However, Credit Sesame monitors information from a single credit bureau — Experian.

The information in your credit report determines in large part what kind of credit, from car loans to credit cards to mortgages, you’ll be able to get. Federal law gives you the right to know what consumer credit information is collected on you and you need to exercise that right.