“Regardless of the weaknesses in my approach, I did feel more empowered going to wamu and not allowing the loan originator to pull my credit.”
Hate to break this to you but the banker you wer sitting across from has your credit score. They get them on weekly basis. Banking systems are tied to the strength of your credit and the promotions offered by the tellers pop up based upon that information.
I would saythat the best tool form manageing your credit is the Wamu credit card and http://www.annualcreditreport.com. Wamu gives you your credit score and annual creditreport.com allows you to see the aging of your accounts.
How is this helpful.If you see that in January of 2006 you applied for 6 credit card offers, you know that they are on your report for 2 years and you are currently sitting at 710 credit than it would make sense to try and wait until February before applying for credit when those account and inquiries ahve aged past the 2 year mark.
There is a lot of other good information in there aswell.
