Product Alert -- Free Fraud Prevention Tool

The Credit Score Verifier, developed to reduce lender risk and loan fallout, is a free tool designed to confirm the authenticity of a credit score, enabling a lender, with basic report number information, to verify credit scores reported by any or all of the repositories prior to undergoing the time and expense of underwriting the file or ordering a back-up credit report.

The Credit Score Verifier, formerly called Credit Score Validator, is an Informative Research proprietary Web-based utility that was enhanced and re-launched as part of the company's ongoing effort to provide you with the latest in fraud protection.

The Credit Score Verifier is available free of charge to all Informative Research Customers. It can be accessed through www.informativeresearch.com under Order Now and by clicking Credit Score Verifier.

Customer Service Tip

Did you know that you can contact our highly trained service representatives by e-mail? E-mailing us saves you time on the phone, and gets your request addressed as fast as a call would -- sometimes faster.

You can e-mail your request to service@informativeresearch.com. Be sure to provide us with the nature of your request, the borrowers' information, your account number and contact information. You may also request a supplement via e-mail, but the supplement must be accessed from www.informativeresearch.com under the "Order Credit" navigation option.

Anatomy of a Credit Score

The best time to find out if your customer has credit isn't when they are actually trying to use it, so providing timely advice to your customer base can be critical. Here's a breakdown that can help you and your customer better understand credit score composition:

• 35% of a credit score is based on payment history - simply
  paying bills on time will, over time, increase a score
  
• 30% of the credit score is based on what is owed - keep
  balances low in comparison to credit limits
  
• 10% to 15% of the credit score is based on length of the
  extension of credit
  
• 10% to 15% of the credit score is based on the number
  of hard inquiries to the score
  
• Less than 10% of the credit score is based on successfully
  managing a mix of credit

To get help with low credit scores, use Informative Research's rescoring products. Using live borrower data, these products scrutinize the report, and help you determine the best plan of action to potentially improve the borrower score.

Seller Financing

Once popular in the 70's and the 80's, "seller financing" is making a comeback and is still a creative way to close a deal. It's best suited for financially stable sellers working with a buyer who is struggling to meet regular lender requirements. But, it can be risky. According to Raymond Bershtein, a partner in Bershtein, Volpe & McKeon, a New Haven, Conn., law firm, a seller engaging in this type of financing should have other assets "so he's not wiped out if the buyer is delinquent."