You’ve spent months scouring the Internet for the perfect washer and dryer combo to complement your newly renovated laundry room. Finally, you’ve located what appears to be the perfect match at the right price. Suddenly the deal is off. Your credit card won’t go through, and you have no other immediate form of payment to... Read More
Have you ever experienced that gut-wrenching fear that a secret you shared with someone you thought you could trust would be leaked? Or maybe it actually happened and you felt betrayed, embarrassed or ashamed. While it’s sometimes tough to know who you can trust with confidential information, one thing you shouldn’t have to worry about is... Read More
More than half of hiring managers have caught applicants lying on their résumés, according to a new survey from CareerBuilder, and the lies range from small embellishments to unrealistic claims. The magnitude of the lie doesn’t matter, because any form of intentionally misleading a prospective employer is sure to hurt your chances of getting the... Read More
A 40-year old federal law protects kids’ school records from the prying eyes of outsiders, but the law is in desperate need of a 21st-Century overhaul. Efforts to do that began last week with the introduction of the Protecting Student Privacy Act in Congress by Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), but... Read More
Plenty of people will tell you how important eating properly can be and how organic foods will positively impact your health and life. Understanding organic is a great place to start. Organic foods are fruits, vegetables and grains are grown without conventional pesticides or synthetic fertilizers while meat and dairy products are cultivated without antibiotics... Read More
All Charles Hoffman wanted to do was switch his phone service. He accomplished that, but not without some serious miscommunications, which ended up damaging his credit report. The 87-year-old New Jersey resident canceled his Verizon phone service in June 2012, paid his final bill of $112.09 and went on with his life, the New Jersey... Read More
If you’ve ever had a debt collector call you, Thursday’s announcement from credit scoring company FICO may be good news for you. FICO just released the newest edition of its general credit scoring model, FICO Score 9. The big changes come in the area of debt collection: The score will not include paid collection accounts,... Read More
A billion stolen passwords sounds like a lot, but it’s no cause for alarm. After all, you knew passwords weren’t keeping your money or information safe, right? Back in 2005…yes, nearly 10 years ago…the FFIEC (government banking regulators) said passwords were inadequate protection for financial institutions. What does the Hold Security billion-password story mean for... Read More
Whether you’re scanning the surf to protect your little ones from a rogue jellyfish, lazing at home on a stay-cation or carting kids to camp, you’re probably already thinking about your back-to-school to-do lists. While you’re out there searching for the perfect backpack for your child, the more important consideration than style, size and color... Read More
Consider this scenario: You’re on Facebook, and you receive two friend requests, both from people you don’t know. With one person, you have no mutual friends, and with the other, you have some. Do you accept either request? Both? Just the one who shares your friends? Scammers are banking on the likelihood you’ll accept the... Read More
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Hello, Reader!
Thanks for checking out Credit.com. We hope you find the site and the journalism we produce useful. We wanted to take some time to tell you a bit about ourselves.
Our People
The Credit.com editorial team is staffed by a team of editors and reporters, each with many years of financial reporting experience. We’ve worked for places like the New York Times, American Banker, Frontline, TheStreet.com, Business Insider, ABC News, NBC News, CNBC and many others. We also employ a few freelancers and more than 50 contributors (these are typically subject matter experts from the worlds of finance, academia, politics, business and elsewhere).
Our Reporting
We take great pains to ensure that the articles, video and graphics you see on Credit.com are thoroughly reported and fact-checked. Each story is read by two separate editors, and we adhere to the highest editorial standards. We’re not perfect, however, and if you see something that you think is wrong, please email us at editorial team [at] credit [dot] com,
The Credit.com editorial team is committed to providing our readers and viewers with sound, well-reported and understandable information designed to inform and empower. We won’t tell you what to do. We will, however, do our best to explain the consequences of various actions, thereby arming you with the information you need to make decisions that are in your best interests. We also write about things relating to money and finance we think are interesting and want to share.
In addition to appearing on Credit.com, our articles are syndicated to dozens of other news sites. We have more than 100 partners, including MSN, ABC News, CBS News, Yahoo, Marketwatch, Scripps, Money Magazine and many others. This network operates similarly to the Associated Press or Reuters, except we focus almost exclusively on issues relating to personal finance. These are not advertorial or paid placements, rather we provide these articles to our partners in most cases for free. These relationships create more awareness of Credit.com in general and they result in more traffic to us as well.
Our Business Model
Credit.com’s journalism is largely supported by an e-commerce business model. Rather than rely on revenue from display ad impressions, Credit.com maintains a financial marketplace separate from its editorial pages. When someone navigates to those pages, and applies for a credit card, for example, Credit.com will get paid what is essentially a finder’s fee if that person ends up getting the card. That doesn’t mean, however, that our editorial decisions are informed by the products available in our marketplace. The editorial team chooses what to write about and how to write about it independently of the decisions and priorities of the business side of the company. In fact, we maintain a strict and important firewall between the editorial and business departments. Our mission as journalists is to serve the reader, not the advertiser. In that sense, we are no different from any other news organization that is supported by ad revenue.
Visitors to Credit.com are also able to register for a free Credit.com account, which gives them access to a tool called The Credit Report Card. This tool provides users with two free credit scores and a breakdown of the information in their Experian credit report, updated twice monthly. Again, this tool is entirely free, and we mention that frequently in our articles, because we think that it’s a good thing for users to have access to data like this. Separate from its educational value, there is also a business angle to the Credit Report Card. Registered users can be matched with products and services for which they are most likely to qualify. In other words, if you register and you find that your credit is less than stellar, Credit.com won’t recommend a high-end platinum credit card that requires an excellent credit score You’d likely get rejected, and that’s no good for you or Credit.com. You’d be no closer to getting a product you need, there’d be a wasted inquiry on your credit report, and Credit.com wouldn’t get paid. These are essentially what are commonly referred to as "targeted ads" in the world of the Internet. Despite all of this, however, even if you never apply for any product, the Credit Report Card will remain free, and none of this will impact how the editorial team reports on credit and credit scores.
Your Stories
Lastly, much of what we do is informed by our own experiences as well as the experiences of our readers. We want to tell your stories if you’re interested in sharing them. Please email us at story ideas [at] credit [dot] com with ideas or visit us on Facebook or Twitter.
Thanks for stopping by.
- The Credit.com Editorial Team
Scott Sheldon
Christine DiGangi
Paige DiFiore
Gerri Detweiler
Kali Geldis
Jim Wang
Bob Sullivan
Brian Acton
Clark Randall
Cheryl Lock
Adam Levin
Brooke Niemeyer
Jeff Rose
Trae Bodge
Mia Taylor
Myles Ma
Constance Brinkley-Badgett
Brian Kuhn
Nick Jarman
Tracie Fobes
Karin Price Mueller
Jill Krasny
Michael Schreiber
Jeanne Kelly
