Wendy Knowler's Consumer Hacks: How to improve your credit score
Know your rights as a
consumer. ECR’s Consumer Watchdog, Wendy Knowler, is giving us daily consumer
tips to help empower you as a consumer. Here are this week’s Consumer Hacks
from Wendy.
1. How to improve your credit score
Credit scores take years to build up and only a few small mistakes to destroy. These 3 items destroy your credit rating:
* Making late payments
* Maxing out your Credit Cards
* Not paying your Debts
Quickest way to up your score? Don’t spend more than 20% of your credit limit.
2. Shrinkflation - it’s messing with “best value” choices
How can you tell which can of tuna or tub of ice cream is the cheapest? Well, you can’t necessarily tell by looking at only at the selling price. Thanks to shrinkflation, they may all look like the same size, but when you check out the pack sizes of the competing brands, you’ll most likely see subtle differences in the grams or millilitres. Something to bear in mind when bargain hunting!
3. Do you get a week’s cooling off period when you take out a cellphone contract?
Well, that depends. If you took it out over the phone, during a telesales call, then yes. If you walk into a store and sign up that way, then no. That’s what I had to tell Caroline, who’s elderly mom signed a R1600 per month cellphone contract in a cellphone shop and had buyer’s remorse on the way home, realising she couldn’t afford four times what she’d been paying up to then.
4. Keen on buying a house? Ask this question before you commit…
Mother Nature has been wreaking havoc on many South African homes and businesses. Trouble is, if a property has repeatedly been damaged by high tides or A river which has burst its banks in a storm, leading to repeat insurance claims, it could be deemed uninsurable for that specific risk, insurance gurus say. A bank won’t finance a property if that risk can’t be insured. So if before you offer to buy a property, ask very specific questions about previous homeowners’ insurance policy claims.
Listen to more Consumer Hacks below.
Contact Wendy Knowler:
Get in touch with Wendy via her website or her Facebook page. Please note that Wendy is not able to personally respond to every email she receives. If she is able to take up your case, she will contact you directly. Here are other avenues for you to consider.