Wednesday, 29 May 2013, MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA - Well hello surviving readers! Is it safe to come out yet? Or are they still staying busy passing laws in some of the more august chambers of legislation littering the landscape of this Great Nation requiring ministers to carry handguns during services, teacher's aides to pack their pieces in nursery schools, doctors to holster a sidearm while visiting patients in hospitals, and so on. Remember, once the Governor signs it, it is the law, until it is most likely immediately stayed by a Court concerned that for all any of us might guess, the next ones required to sport their favorite concealed firearm may be the jurors sitting ten feet away from them in the courtroom.
We at the Ninth Amendment for our part will never forget that proud day in Alaska when the legislature affirmed its continued support presumably lest residents or visitors had any lingering doubts (particularly during those very long dark cold winter nights when Alaska generated more telephone calls to Coca-Cola's toll-free number "just to talk" than any other state far in excess of its relatively scant then-population of about 800,000 people perhaps instead of picking up their firearms -- not a funny matter, if one needs to make a phone call PLEASE DO SO -- one can always change one's own mind, but those who love and care about them and whose lives will be forever changed as we ourselves have so tragically seen cannot) that it continued to be the strict policy of the State of Alaska to enforce all laws against bestiality. We suppose it just goes to show that no one state apparently got to have all the best legislators to itself.
It being the habit of this Ninth Amendment log perhaps at times to tend toward cutting an ox-bow or two back on itself especially when the interns are left at the helm for, say, Memorial Day, we cannot help but note nevertheless that our statistical readership reports consistently demonstrate our readers' taste for revisiting past years' posts in which the Ninth Amendment from time to time has tried to pass along absolutely unbiased money-saving tips when the stakes can be quite high for our loyal readers as we have learned only too well in these cases from our own experience as well, as in, for example, free instant medical care advice or often significant savings on prescription drugs at no other cost to readers. If we are part of that "infamous" one per cent not only are we not telling, we aim to stay that way as best we can until WE decide to change the situation.
Which does now bring us concisely more or less at last to the point for the post. As many readers may only vaguely be aware, Americans now actually do have another federal agency that so far as we know is not devoted to spying, killing, or bombing people that some may only be remotely aware of because the US Consumer Financial Protection Agency for one thing was not funded by Republicans for quite some time after its creation for fear that its nominated chief may actually have attempted to achieve something akin to its name which problem was finally circumvented by President Obama dumping her nomination.
In any case more to the point today in light of the growing perception that soon Americans will not be eligible to, say, buy a hamburger on credit or be picked up by an ambulance if their credit score is not high enough, the Ninth Amendment wishes simply to bring to our readers attention the actual name of the entity formed pursuant to law (NO THIS DOES NOT CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE WHICH SHOULD ONLY BE SOUGHT FROM A PROFESSIONAL) some time back to make at least one copy annually available AT NO COST by picking up the phone or going to the web address
www.annualcreditreport.com which is what we here provide because we remember it.
Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are in almost all cases required to provide all readers of their majority age instantly via internet with one full copy of their credit reports FREE FREE FREE no subscription no buying a "score" no nothing else no credit monitoring no "identity protection" no nothing else except readers proving within reason readers are indeed the subject of the report they seek, as in it is their own identity. This is to benefit the American consumer and was not intended for any of these three agencies to make a windfall confusing people into thinking they owed the "credit reporting agencies" anythng but a nice swift "online dispute", always nice as it gives them very little time to jerk consumers around, either pursue the matter or if not take the disputed matter out of the report pronto not months later by Pony Express.
Naturally our experience has been that they will take every opportunity to try to get requesters to write or even request by phone the report be sent by mail as this buys them much more time to send it by donkey and then field requests at their seeming leisure to correct errors while consumers suffer all kinds of needless financial and other distress while the rich folks reportedly even just call and get it FIXED IN A DAY.
FINALLY for much more detailed information on this very preliminary post merely to head readers in the right direction, the Ninth Amendment as always in the body of a post without any remuneration whatsoever here urges readers to do a computer search such as "Nolo Press Credit Disputes" for much more detailed information which is available free of charge with plenty of content available to read on the web. For those unfamiliar with it Nolo Press is in the opinion of the Ninth Amendment editorial staff a terrific organziation located in Berkeley, California that does publish books and produce other legal materials for charge but also offers many, many of its materials on the web with no charge whatsoever with the roughly guding belief that people should not pay lawyers to do what they are perfectly capable of doing themselves in many cases with appropriate guidance and of course within the confines of the law.
Finally, readers this post does NOT CONSTITUTE ANY LEGAL ADVICE WHATSOEVER which must be sought from a duly licensed professional but is offered solely as a public service to hopefully point our readers in the right direction in the ever-more-important apparently area of so-called "credit scores" as merely touches on a main source of information through free annual credit reports. Do not be fooled by other similar web addresses which most often involve selling scores, subscriptions, monitoring and a host of other things which will be more valuable to most persons anyway with the help of interpretative information as to what all this means to them. Readers also may try sites such as
credit.com and
creditkarma.com which do what are called "soft pulls" of readers' credit scores just as the major three sites (meaning they do NOT affect readers' scores) and are affiliated with Experian and TansUnion respectively prvoiding "credit report cards" and some scores at no charge.
Finally as to the reference in the post heading here to "GAMING" credit scores this is not our term but we in fact most recently read of it in a publicly published piece by a spokesperson from Fair, Isaacs which is the company that originated the orginal scores from which the others mentioned above are derived. It also has a site but does not so far as we are aware have to give away anything free to consumers. Readers may explore this themselves should they wish reading information about the so-called "FICO" score at
www.myfico.com.Those who wish to visit it at least on Google skymaps may find that it is located not far from the California State Prison at San Quentin, the State's sole death row prison.
Finally for those who do find themselves getting deeply into this subject matter when they realize it may well be on the way to ruling many American's lives although FICO representatives themselves have directly said such information has not been shown to have any relationship whatsoever to what may be considered, say, the virtues and vices of anything related to dishonesty or misconduct. Other than, perhaps, what one might imagine to be the "virtues of capitalism" or at least in certain cases "not getting caught".
As for "GAMING" credit scores this is related to making use of such knowledge as the fact that in most cases creditors who report to "credit bureaus" do so monthly giving those with a keen sense of timing the opportunity to move money around more quickly, at least so far, than anyone cares to try to track it to such a degree as to ascertain exactly what the actually total is at any one time. This might be somewhat akin to what once was the popular practice of "surfing" credit card rates with "zero balance transfers", a practice now reportedly not compelling as it once was with strategic "fees" thrown in by banks to thwart the practice.
Banks and insurance companies being of course some of the most, if not creative, at least persistent in their relentless quest to leave consumers with less and less cash and themselves with more and more largely through the employment of large numbers of mediocre attorneys with a righteous belief in their power to give words whatever meaning they assign them ( as in usury becomes "fees") and what once they were taught were "contracts" become unilateral ultimatums requiring the true "agreement" of but ONE party, that being the larger, the other of course always being free to disagree without duress or coercion other than being driven immediately bankrupt through the withdrawal of agreed credit.
One last thought here is it will be of interest to see if this post attracts advertisers who push the limits of the meaning of the word "free" to the absolute limits imaginable. Should their ads appear in the vicinity it should give readers a very helpful guide just for what they should be on the lookout.
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