eCredable Blog - Learn to Build Credit

Normally paying utility bills does not build credit. But they can if you use a third-party company to report your bill payments for you.

You can't report utility bills to the credit bureaus by yourself, but you can hire a third-party service provider to do it on your behalf.

This article originally appeared in Quora and was authored by Mitchell Lee, Director of the Fintech Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (August 14, 2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted our lives in many ways, and for some - it has impacted our credit scores.

eCredable Lift® provides consumers with the ability to report their utility accounts in their TransUnion credit report. Most utility companies do not report your positive payment history to the credit bureaus, which means you don’t get any credit for paying these accounts on time.

The last time I got up in front of a group to talk about my job, no one had questions for me. It was a high school career day a few weeks ago, and the students stared at me blankly as I dropped words like “personal finance,” “credit scores” and “debt.” I could tell they thought my work wasn’t exciting, that the topics I write about are boring. Everyone was happy when the bell rang to end my session.

Last month, the White House announced that more than half of American adults would soon have access to free credit scores through their credit card issuers. Soon after, Citi began sharing scores with its cardholders. Last week, upstart VantageScore announced it was making in-roads with lenders and is about to serve its 1 billionth score. This week comes word from FICO, the folks who supply the most commonly-used credit score, that it will for the first time make 18 different versions of its FICO score available to consumers — for a fee.

How long should someone wait for a credit report? I mailed AnnualCreditReport.com requests for a single credit agency report for my daughter and myself, but neither of us has received a response. I do not want to send an additional request and be billed for multiple reports.

How to leverage Alternative Data (like phone and utility bills) to impact traditional credit scores like FICO and VantageScore

Tips for building a credit history if you are an international student or immigrated to the United States. Credit is an important part of the American financial institution and therefore an important part of the American dream. If you have no credit as an immigrant or international student, know that you do have options to help you build your credit history in a responsible manner.