vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Yes. You can pay towards your credit card before the actual bill becomes due every month. However, your credit usage ratio does not get sent to credit reporting agencies exactly on the day of your bill; this data can be sent to the agencies any day of the month. So, keep your balance low at all times throughout the month, not just right before your statement closing date.
"Much of what you're asking will not be disclosed for obvious security reasons, so don't be surprised when call center people say they ""don't know"". They may actually not know, but even if they did, they'd be fired if they were to say anything. Nothing could be a touchier subject than online security for the financial institutions. I don't know of reliable sources for the data you're asking about, and I don't know the banks or other firms would release it. For a bank to talk about its incidence rates of fraud would be unusual, because none of these institutions wants to appear ""less safe"" than their competitors. If there's any information out there then it's going to be pretty vague. None of these institutions wants the ""bad guys"" to know what their degree of success is against one bank versus any other. I hope that makes sense. The smaller banks usually piggyback their data on the networks of the larger financial institutions, so they are as secure (as a general rule) as the larger banks' networks they're running on. Also, your transactions on your credit cards are not generally handled directly by your bank anyway, unless it's one of the big heavyweights like Chase or Bank of America. All transactions run through merchant processors, who act as intermediaries between merchants and the banks, and those guys are pretty damned good at security. I've met some of the programmers, and they're impressive to me (I've been a programmer for 35 years and can't put a finger on these guys!). Most banks require that you must provide proof of identity when opening an account, and that ID must me the standards of the ""USA Real ID Act"". Here's an excerpt from the Department of Homeland Security website on what Real ID is: Passed by Congress in 2005, the REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver's licenses.” The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards.
"Yes it is possible, the Google Summer of Code students have been doing so for years. They get a Prepaid card and then can spend that in there local countries. They have the billing address as Google and the shipping address as their own. A few retailers have trouble but that just their systems. The trouble people have had is more in transferring the money to their personal accounts, usually there is a charge on this transfer. Transfer money from US (""prepaid"") VISA Debit to AU bank account"
I agree.  I pulled my free reports (by going to ftc.gov first to get link to the truly free reports).   The Equifax data was out of date.  Didn't​ bother trying to correct it.    As I don't need any new credit lines, I just put a security freeze on my records at all four bureaus.  Makes my data virtually worthless to any potential identity their, and (best of all) nearly worthless to the bureaus.
A SWIFT code helps but it is not always necessary. In the early 2000s I worked in Hong Kong.  All a Hong Kong bank needed to wire money to the USA was the ABA number, which was the check routing number from the bottom of a US check, the bank account number, and the name on the destination account.
You should definitely be able to keep the US bank account and credit cards. I'm a UK citizen and resident who worked in the US for a few months (on a temporary visa) many years back and I still have the US bank account from that time. Unless you are planning on moving to the UK permanently, you also should keep your US bank account and cards to make the process of moving back there eventually easier. I would also suggest keeping/moving at least a portion of your savings to the US at regular intervals to insure you against the risk that exchange rates will be against you when you move back. It'll also make things easier when you visit the US as you presumably will every so often - if you use your US account and cards you won't get hit so badly by charges for making each individual payment.
You're not missing anything. Consumer protection in the US is very basic and limited, if at all. So if someone claims you owe them something, it would be really hard for you to prove otherwise unless you actually drag them to court. Especially if there actually was a relationship, and there probably is some paperwork to substantiate the claim. I suggest talking to a consumer issues attorney.
I have never seen any of my mobile phone providers report any data to any credit agency. They tend to only do that if you don't pay on time. Maybe sometimes it helps, but from my experience over the last decade - it must be some very rare times.
"Just a word of warning: Most of the companies that promise to repair your credit are scams or close to them.  You could just as easily do yourself what they are going to charge you for. Essentially they write a letter to the credit agencies disputing most or all of the bad stuff on your credit report. When you do that, the credit agency sends an inquiry to the company that reported the negative information requiring them to justify it. If that company doesn't respond within x days, they remove the item from your credit report. These companies depend on the fact that some companies aren't going to hit that deadline or even respond. Perhaps they are just too busy to hassle with providing backup documentation for a $20 late payment. They are banking on getting a few of these cheap ""outs"" to your benefit and charging you for what amounts to sending out a bunch of form letters. If you don't mind writing a bunch of letters, then you can save a lot of money and get the exact same results. These companies want to pretend they have some insider knowledge or fancy lawyers that know special credit-magic, but they generally don't. The only option I'd consider legitimate and not a waste of your time is a referral from the non-profit National Federation for Credit Counseling. They aren't going to ""fix your credit"", but will give you advice on budgeting and repairing your credit on your own."
This means that, combined with the ability of debt collectors to contact someone about out of statute debt and the pitfalls of re-aging, it is entirely possible for a debt collector to get a 20 year old debt actionable again. Also note that while someone is trying to dodge a debt to make it time-barred (e.g. by not paying anything), creditors and debt collectors can still take legal action to sue over the debt, and if they get a judgment against someone, this can extend the debt indefinitely. Judgements will eventually lapse, but often only after 10 years or more, and many states allow dormant judgements to be ""revived"" within that time period. Credit Reports Regarding credit reports, whether someone owes a debt and whether it appears on a credit report are two separate things. As previously stated, no debt ""dissolves"" or goes away unless some sort of legal action makes it so. As far as reporting is concerned, however, most ""bad"" credit stops being reported after seven years (by federal law). That is, accounts on a credit report will be deleted seven years from the original delinquency dates of the accounts regardless of being included in bankruptcy or as time-barred debt. This assumes no legal process allows the account to continue being reported (as is often the case with re-aging). As an FYI, a bankruptcy discharge date has nothing to do with when account information will be removed from your credit report. Note that some debts, such as tax liens, can be reported indefinitely. Should bankruptcy be considered? The decision to do bankruptcy is mostly a matter of how severe the debt is. If it is an extremely large amount and assets are very small, bankruptcy is a good route in so far as it will legally take care of a lot of loose ends and likely relieve most or all of the burden of actually owing the money. Credit-wise, 10 years is the maximum a bankruptcy (specifically) will appear on a credit report. Accounts may drop off a credit report before bankruptcy because they are past the seven years they can be legally reported. Debts owed to the state such as child support, student loans, income tax, etc. generally cannot be written off and aren't subject normal debt statute of limitations on collection.
I suspect they won't be very interested, if all you uncover is fraudulent applications that were declined. However, you may uncover a successful fraud, i.e. a live card in your name being used by a criminal, or a store or phone credit agreement. In which case obviously get in touch with that company a.s.a.p. to get it shut down and to get the authorities involved in dealing with the crime. In general, write down everything you are told, including phone contact names, and keep it. Confirm anything that you have agreed in writing, and keep copies of the letters you write and of course, the replies you receive. You shouldn't need any lawyer. The UK credit law puts the onus very much on the credit card company to prove that you owe it money, and if a random stranger has stolen your id, it won't be able to do that. In fact, it's most unlikely that it will even try, unless you have a criminal record or a record of financial delinquency. But it may be an awful lot of aggravation for years to come, if somebody has successfully stolen your ID. So even if the first lot of credit reference agency print-outs look ""clean"", check again in about six weeks time and yet again in maybe 3 months. Finally there is a scheme that you can join if you have been a victim of ID theft. I've forgotten its name but you will probably be told about it. Baically, your credit reference files will be tagged at your request with a requirement for extra precautions to be taken. This should not affect your credit rating but might make obtaining credit more hassle (for example, requests for additional ID before your account is opened after the approval process). Oh, and post a letter to yourself pdq. It's not unknown for fraudsters to persuade the Post Office to redirect all your mail to their address!"
Trading data can be had cheaply from:  http://eoddata.com/products/historicaldata.aspx  The SEC will give you machine readable financial statements for American companies for free, but that only goes back 3 or 4 years.  Beyond that, you will have to pay for a rather expensive service like CapitalIQ or CRSP or whatever.  Note that you will need considerable programming knowledge to pull this off.
What to do when institutions stop lending you money, or lend at high rates? Live within your means! Your friend has shown financial behavior that indicates he's a bad credit risk. If he cleans up his act, banks will lend to him at reasonable rates again.  Not a whole lot he can do except build his credit again.  He didn't lose it overnight, and he won't get it back overnight either.
This is probably a good time to note that credit is not a liquid asset, and not an emergency fund. Credit can be revoked or denied at any time, and Murphy's law states that you may have issues with credit when everything else goes wrong too.
This can be a case of someone trying to use your identity to obtain credit.  I would put a fraud alert on my credit immediately.  I went through something similar... got denial letters for credit I didn't apply to.  A few months later I get hit with a credit ding from a pay day loan company that apparently allowed the thief to get a loan who obviously didn't pay it back.  I had no contact with this company before they put the lates on my credit and it took over a year to get this cleaned up.  Apparently this loan was obtained about a week after I got the first denial letter so if I put a fraud alert on immediately it would have most likely stopped this fraudulent pay day loan before it happened.
Depends how you're doing the math.  The actual damage done so far is zero or near zero.  You're valuing potential damage.  If your concern is fixing the error then the damage wouldn't be monetary - it'd be credit repair in the case of a problem.
A line of credit is a poor substitute for an emergency fund.   Banks typically have a clause that allows them to stop further withdrawals from your line of credit if there is a change of vaguely defined type.   For example, if you lose your job they can stop you from making withdrawals from your line-of-credit.
If you have a negative balance on your credit card, you can call the issuer and have them send you a check for the amount. Some will do it automatically for large amounts or if it stays negative over some period of time. Usually credit card issuers don't let paying more than the current balance, but it still can happen sometimes if you pay off your balance and then get a refund, for example.
"These are services that facilitate using credit cards. So whatever vulnerabilities there may be, your risk is limited to your liability to the credit card issuer. Usually, this means no liability whatsoever, and the most significant risk is the inconvenience of re-issuing the compromised card. Some card issuers separate the ""Pay"" service account from your main account so that even that risk is mitigated - the number exposed is only used for that specific service and doesn't compromise your actual physical card."
$500 should not have a massive impact on your credit. Why not at the beginning of each month buy a $500 prepaid Visa instead of using your credit card? That way you set a hard limit, but you still have the option of using credit in an emergency.
The damage to your credit from the derogatory effects of BK would linger for years, but the damage from poor payment history declines much quicker, and loses most of the effect after 2 years (and should you keep the accounts open, leaves you with good history and longer account history), thus the effects decline to minimal after as little as 2 years of good behavior/payment history. Make a plan that prioritizes the debts, and how you will resolve the problem, and work the plan. Based upon the income and debts you mention, the situation you have may not be as bad as it appears. You may be getting bad advice, especially from a debt settlement company that might be more interested in their fees than in your problem. Since you ""want to play fair and continue with payments, but when people start to get greedy like this I am ready to just stop caring"", you really need two things, a plan, and a friend, someone who you can talk to honestly and openly, and who can support you as you work through the plan you make. Since you ""would prefer the option that will give me the most peace of mind and allow me to start saving money as soon as possible"", you need to find an approach that fits your goals. Your statement that you ""don't plan on ever using credit again"", fits with the Dave Ramsey philosophy and resonates with many of us who have learned that those who grant credit are often harsh masters. Now that you have provided more information, the advice below expands upon the above reflecting upon your specific situation. Since you make $62K/year, you may be close to the median income, and the BAPCPA (Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005) has a presumption of abuse for filing Ch7 when you have above median income (for your state, check the law). As you may be pushed into Ch13 debt repayment anyway, examine what you could do to repay the debt (over 5 years, 60 months, as that would be a Ch13 repayment duration). Since you have $8K of revolving (unsecured?) debt, that would be repaid in Ch13 over 60 months at about $133/month (no interest), but you would also be paying 10% to the trustee.
Freeze your credit.  No one can open new accounts in your name if your credit is frozen.  How do I freeze my credit? This is good advice even if your identity isn't stolen.  There is a cost, but it is very effective.
We don't pay interest, we have credit ratings of 800+.  I wouldn't be surprised at a drop from selling your house as you now have no installment debt and thus your debt mix doesn't look at good as it did.  (This assumes you don't have something like a car loan but from what you say I don't think you do.)  I am very surprised at the size of the drop, though.  Is it possible that something went wrong and you ended up with some sort of ding from the sale or related events?  Have you checked your report for anything that could have caused it?
"I disagree with the previous answer based upon your particular situation.   If the column states something like ""Amount Due to you"", and is a negative number, then you owe that amount. Much like the previous poster states that a Balance would be money you owe, and if it was negative then the school owes you the same can be said for the column in question. If the number was positive, the school would owe you that amount, if negative then you owe them.   Keep in mind you could always post a pic of the document blacking out personal information."
It's possible they will want more information from you at this point, and this is a useful way to make sure that request doesn't fall off of their plate. They should be able to, at least, tell you if there was a perceived issue on their end - it might be something meaningless to you, like ""He thought you said to sign up"", or something more descriptive, like ""He pushed the button to send you a notice, but our computer system screwed that up and made it an application"". You never know these days how easy it is to screw these things up. Now, they certainly should have fixed the issues on your end. Hopefully they did whatever you needed them to do banking-wise, or else you withdrew your money and went somewhere else. If not, follow up with that supervisor's supervisor, or go up a level or two to a regional director or equivalent. They may not be able to cancel the card for you, but the other banking-related things they certainly should fix. The card you probably just have to cancel and be done with. As far as the misuse of personal information, one thing I'd consider doing is placing a freeze on your credit report. Then this could never have happened - you would have to lift it to have your report pulled to be given the card. This is not free, though, so consider this before doing this."
A landlord or any creditor can still put negative information in your credit report without your social security number - it just takes a bit more sleuthing on their part. If you want perfect credit, either   1. don't break your lease;   2. break it with the written permission of the landlord (by paying some compensation, for example); or   3. break it with legal permission by asking a court to vacate the terms of the lease.
You need to find out if the credit card has been reporting these failed automated payments as late or missed payments to your credit report. To do this, go to annualcreditreport.com (the official site to get your free credit reports) and request your report from all three bureaus. If you see late or missing payments reported for the months where you made a payment but then they did an automatic payment anyway, you should call up the credit card company, explain the situation, and ask them to retract those negative reports. If they refuse, you should dispute the reports directly with the credit bureaus. If they have been reporting late payments even though you have been making the payments, that will impact your credit much more than the fact that they closed your account.  Unfortunately, they can turn off your credit account for any reason they like, and there isn't much you can do about that. Find yourself another job as soon as you can, get back on your feet, pay off your debt, and think very carefully before you open another credit card in the future. Don't start a new credit card unless you can ensure that you will pay it off in full every month.
There are a few potential downsides but they are minor: If you forget to make the payment the interest hit the following month could be significant. With many cards the new charges will be charged interest from the start if the previous payment was late/missed. Just make sure you don't forget to pay the entire bill. If the $5K in monthly bills is a large portion of the credit limit for that credit card you could run into a problem with the grace period. During the three weeks between when the monthly bill closes and the payment is due, new charges will keep rolling in. Plan on needing a credit limit for the card of 2x the monthly bills. Of course you don't have to wait for the due date. Just go online and pay the bill early. If the monthly bills are a significant portion of the total credit limit for all credit cards, it can decrease your credit score because of the high utilization rate.  The good news is that over time the credit card company will increase your credit limit thus reducing the downsides of the last two items. Also keep in mind you generally can't pay a credit card bill or loan with a credit card, but many of the other bills each month can be handled this way.
I'm in the US, and I can't speak for all credit cards, but I have done this in the past. I've paid extra on my credit card, and had a positive balance on my credit card account. The purchases made after paying extra were applied to the balance, and if there was money left over on the statement closing date, I didn't owe anything that month.  Of course, I didn't incur any interest charges, but I never pay interest anyway, as I always pay my statement in full each month and never take a cash advance on my credit card.  You could call your credit card company and ask them what will happen, or if you are feeling adventurous, you could just send them some extra money and see what happens. Most likely, they will just apply it to your account and give you a positive balance.
Its not just late fees. The fees for going over your credit limit are exorbitant. To make things worse, they will rearrange the transactions you make during a day so that they can charge you more by making more of them fail.
"None of the previous answers (which are all good) mention margin accounts (loans from your broker).  You may also have heard them described as ""leverage"".  It may seem odd to mention this rather narrow form of debt here, but it's important because overuse of leverage has played a large part in pretty much every financial crisis you can think of (including the most recent one).  As the Investopedia definitions indicate, leverage magnifies gains, but also magnifies losses. I consider margin/leverage to be ""bad"" debt."
Young folks and students are more likely to be overdrawn on accounts, which is ridiculously expensive. Use a program like GNUcash to anticipate all your expenses. You can enter future dated transactions, and it will show you future minimum balances. Negative future minimum balances are of course, the thing you need to worry about. This is especially important as you'll have a mix of large upfront costs (tuition, books), large upfront receivables (student loans, grants), recurring expenses (food, rent, beer), and perhaps recurring income from a part time job. Software helps you record all the nuances to this system so that you can see how much the typical 'friday night fun' will bankrupt you.
There's no harm in keeping them open.  Like you said, closing the lines will potentially hurt your utilization.  The extent of that impact will depend on your particular situation.   There are situations where closing a line will have no actual impact on your utilization.  If you have 100k of open credit and a debt load of $2k, if you close a $10k line you won't really have an issue because your utilization is 2% and closing the line will take you to 2.2%.