Mark Magger 
If you’re trying to figure out how to remove collections from your credit report, someone has probably already told you it’s impossible. “It stays for seven years. Nothing you can do.” That’s the official version. The real version is messier — and a lot more hopeful. Collections get removed from credit reports every single day. … Read more
A few weeks ago I split a $118 pair of running shoes into four payments. The approval took maybe eight seconds. My own bank, which has known me for years, still wants a phone call and two business days to raise my card limit by $200 — but a company I’d never interacted with in … Read more
Type “how to raise your credit score 100 points” into Google and you’ll drown in promises. A hundred points in 30 days. Two hundred with one weird trick. Secret letters the banks don’t want you to know about. Most of it is noise, and some of it is outright scam bait. But here’s what’s frustrating: … Read more
If you’ve been trying to answer one simple question — does medical debt affect your credit score? — I don’t blame you for being confused. The rules changed. Then they changed back. Then fifteen states wrote their own rules, and now the federal government is fighting those too. Quick recap of the chaos: in January … Read more
