Soft inquiries (like you just checking your credit through ScoreMaster^®) don’t affect your score at all. However, multiple hard inquiries can deplete your score by several points each time they happen.

Always check your 3 Bureau credit scores to get an accurate picture of what your lenders will see. After all, you never know which score your prospective lender is going to pull.

Credit scores are calculated differently depending on the credit scoring model. But here are the key factors:

• Payment history: Whether you’ve paid past credit accounts on time.
• Amounts owed: The total amount of credit and loans you’re using compared to your total credit limit, also known as your utilization rate.
• Length of credit history: The length of time you’ve had credit.
• New credit: How often you apply for and open new accounts.
• Credit mix: The variety of credit products you have, including credit cards, installment loans, finance company accounts, mortgage loans and so on
• Extremely influential: Payment history
• Highly influential: Type and duration of credit and percent of credit limit used.
• Moderately influential: Total balances/debt.
• Less influential: Available credit and recent credit behavior and inquiries.

The credit score changes shown in ScoreMaster^® typically apply to all credit scores the same, including FICO^® and VantageScore versions. That’s because all credit scores derive from TransUnion^®, Experian^™ and Equifax^®, where your spending and payments are recorded.

The most common misconception is that your income or wealth impact your score. In fact, anything that defines how much money you have or how much you’re worth (e.g. income, retirement account balances, home equity, net worth), is not considered in your credit scores.

Other factors that don’t affect your credit score include:

• Race
• Religion
• Nationality
• Gender
• Marital status
• Age
• Political affiliation
• Education
• Occupation
• Job title
• Employer
• Employment history
• Where you live
• Or your total assets

Yes, you can use your ITIN if you submit your request to one of the three nationwide credit reporting companies by mail. Once the company receives your request, they’ll verify your identity.

Generally, credit is organized into three major buckets:

1. Revolving credit: where a consumer borrows money from a lender and pays it back at the end, or makes partial monthly payments, as in a Visa or MasterCard charge card.

2. Charge credit: where the lender provides the consumer with a loan under the presumption that it is going to be paid in full at the end of the month, like on most American Express credit cards.

3. Installment credit: when the consumer agrees to finance a debt with monthly payments over a predetermined period of time, such as in a home mortgage or a car payment.