My Blog

Robbie at The Lokey Volkswagen car dealership says “Your credit rating is fairly high.” Man, I wish I had a digital recorder in my pocket to play that back over and over.  I had some credit problems, but have worked very hard to build up my credit again. “Fairly high” is music to my ears.  I have been car shopping, and finally found a used VW Jetta that I can afford.  Several dealerships offered to run a free credit report for me, but knowing that my credit has been shaky in the past, I declined until I found the car I knew I wanted.  Which brings me to my point…..

So why is it that running a credit report will hurt your credit rating? They say too many in too short of a time span is frowned upon. Well that really makes it hard to shop and compare. What I wanted to do was run a free credit report online to see if it was better or not before car shopping. I want to see exactly what my credit score is now. But my friends and even one of the car dealerships advise not to run too many. I find this ridiculous. In this day and age, why can’t the credit bureaus accommodate this? Or maybe they do, maybe that is an old wives’ tale. At minimum, you should be able to obtain your own credit score without any penalty, and this could be possible, I am just ignorant about this. The entire system for determining a credit rating is a mystery, and it should be more transparent. When I actually saw my credit report (that the dealer said he was not supposed to show me??? It’s MY credit score!), I couldn’t make heads or tails of it anyhow.  But the bottom line, griping aside, is that ‘fairly high’ is fantastic and I’m gettin’ a Jetta. Sweet!