How Should Credit Scores Be Handled When You Are 65+? – Episode #29

How should you handle your credit score in retirement or when you are over 65? Hopefully, this is a time of credit preservation. You should be done with credit building. Ideally, you have a house that’s paid off, or close to paid off and that you don’t need to apply for new credit. If not, you should check out our other lessons and credit score episodes.

Here are a couple of steps to consider when handling credit in retirement:

1. You should check your credit either by using a score monitoring service like Score Watch, or at a minimum through annualcreditreport.com.
2. Consider implementing a credit freeze on your credit file. Set up a freeze so no new credit accounts can be opened. This is different from a 90 day credit alert, which just requires more security questions to open a new credit account. With a credit freeze, a new credit account cannot be opened without removing the freeze and that takes some effort and often a payment to the bureau to unlock it.

Be on the lookout for the scams. Probably, one of the big scams is the authorized user scam where a “business” contacts you and offers you a small fee to loan out your credit. They’ll tell you you can help out a needy person and still make money for something you aren’t really using any more. What they don’t tell you is they are charging the person with bad credit a lot more than they are paying you and that they are taking advantage of a loophole in score modeling for authorized users which is intended for parents and spouses to help their kids and spouses build credit.

Similar Posts:

• How Should Credit Scores Be Handled When You Are 65+? – Episode #29
• Credit Scores in Retirement – Episode #79
• How Do I Build Credit As A Recent High School Grad? – Episode #38
• Expats and Credit Scores – Episode #69
• Build Your Credit Score From the Beginning – Episode #95
• Marriage, Divorce and Credit Scores – Lesson #5