Will pulling your credit ruin your life completely? Find out!

Summary

Protect and Improve Your Credit Scores: James Loewen's Expert Tips for Smart Credit Management. Learn how to overcome credit score anxiety and pull your credit report responsibly. Discover free resources to monitor your credit and safeguard against fraudulent activities. Take control of your credit journey. Smarter, Not Harder.

Transcript

James Loewen:

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Credit Special series. How many of you thought to yourself, "No matter what I do, I can't pull my credit report. It'll destroy it." I'm here to tell you that's completely wrong and probably the exact opposite of what you should do, and I'm here to give you an actual action item that you can do easily that will protect your credit. I'm James Loewen. Let's get your credit scores showing. This is Smarter, Not Harder.

All right, so what we've got is credit score anxiety or credit report pulling fears, and let's start with how did we get here. Years ago, there was an issue, and what was happening was a crazy incentivization. You might be at the Bay, and if I get a credit card, I get 10% off my bill. If I'm at the Jays game, if I get a credit card, I'll get a free ball. I'm at the Raptors game. I'll get a free basketball. If I'm at the grocery store, this actually happened to me. I got a free box of cookies if I got that credit card from the store.

What was happening, and happening more and more, was, people were starting to pull up the credit bureaus almost weekly. If you pull up your credit score and report 52 times a year, that's going to potentially hurt your credit, but pulling it up once a quarter, that's actually what you should be doing, making sure there's no missed reports on there, no fraudulent activities, and if you're wondering and thinking yourself, "Oh, James, but then do I have to sign up for that 1999 a month credit report?"

No, it's free. At Equifax.ca and TransUnion.ca, you can obtain a copy for free by mail. Now you can even save yourself time by having us pull, as we do that for every one of our clients. You might be thinking, "James, if you're shopping for our mortgage, I'm going to go to my banks as well, and then I'll come to you." You are actually going to be the one that's hurting your credit. By going to each and every bank and lender and pulling up a credit bureau on each one, you're going to have multiple inquiries. We, as your broker, pull one.

We use that same one to review, with each bank and lender actually mitigating and keeping it down, so we're actually helping your score on that side. Where do we go from here? What can you actually do to help protect your credit? Put a restriction on that. Give Equifax and TransUnion a quick call. We're going to have the phone numbers below here and ensure that on your credit report it states no credit to be extended until verbally verified and have your cell phone number. Now, make sure, if you change your cell phone numbers, that you also call because that could restrict you getting a credit card.

This will stop anyone that's trying to take out a credit card or a new cellphone in your name from being able to obtain it. Anytime we have our clients with that on there, the lenders, once we submit, we'll then give our clients a call, often while in office or on formats. Now you're truly protecting your credit, and all at zero cost, so the next time someone says to you, "I don't want to pull my credit, it's going to kill it." Tell them to think that. Flip the script. It's actually going to help you a lot. You should be looking at your credit scores, and we're happy to help you do that. I'm James Loewen. We're getting your credit report, showing this is Smarter, Not Harder.