October 30, 2024 • 27 mins
Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed, Rod Griffin.
Rod Griffin. He is the Senior Director of Public Education and Advocacy at Experian, to unpack the essentials of financial health and identity protection. Griffin dives into savvy strategies for improving your credit score, understanding fraud prevention, and managing personal finances for lasting success. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to take control of their financial future and gain peace of mind in today’s digital world. Perfect for listeners eager to unlock financial freedom and protect what matters most.
Talking Points/Questions *
- From your perspective and career in the financial services industry, what does it mean to be financially savvy?
- What role does credit play in a consumer’s overall financial health?
- What are some of the common misconceptions about credit and credit scores?
- What advice would you give to someone who is looking to establish or rebuild their credit history?
- Many people know your credit score can impact your ability to access credit cards, loans, etc. but what else can your credit history influence?
- What are ways consumers can save on everyday expenses like car insurance?
- What are your top tips for people looking to be more financially savvy in 2025?
- What tools and resources are available from Experian for consumers who are looking to improve their overall financial health and save money?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I am Rashwan McDonald, the host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass,
where we encourage.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
People to stop reading other people's success stories and start
planning their own. Listen up as I interview entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
From around the country, talk to celebrities and ask them
how they are running their companies, and speak with non
profits who are making a difference in their local communities. Now,
sit back and listen as we unlock the secrets to
their success on Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Hi, I am
Rashaan McDonald, our host this weekly Money Making Conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Master Class show.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The interviews and information that this show provides off for everyone.
It's time to stop reading other people's success stories and
start living your own. I'm here to help you reach
your American dream. My guest is the senior director of
Public Education and Advocacy for Experience. He leaves experienced national
consumer education programs and works with consumer advocates, financial education,
(01:00):
media and others to help consumers increase their ability to
understand and manage their personal finances and protect themselves from
fraud and identity there please welcome the Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Rod Grifforth, how you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Rock fantastic, glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, thank you for coming on the show, because I'm
gonna tell you some broad my email. My phone is
being inundated with messages that I don't know if it's
real or not. It looks like it may be a bank,
it looks like it may be a credit card. Tell
me what's going on, because I want to start our
conversation with what you said right here, educating us about
(01:40):
fraud and identity there.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, so we all get the notices of data breaches,
we all get the emails. I get them too, and
sometimes phone calls as well. And you know, fraud is
something that everybody's after today. I sometimes tell people that
the currency for today of today isn't necessarily cash. It's information,
(02:03):
and a lot of times it's personal information. It's your identity.
Because if they can steal your identity, they can use
it to do all sorts of things. They can use
it to try to apply for frauduct credit accounts, they
can use it to apply for IDs, for government benefits,
for all sorts of things. So the identity thieves are
(02:24):
busy trying to trick us into giving them our information.
Our personal and private information, our financial information, so that
they can use it to their gain and against us.
So it's a huge problem and they're getting more sophisticated
about it. And artificial intelligence is something that's actually something
we're even more concerned about today because you may not
(02:48):
even be talking to a person now or getting an
email from a person. It could be a machine that
is posing as someone you know and playing on those
emotional heartstrings to get you to give them and from
and that's what they want. So we have to learn
to kind of recognize those and to know when it
probably isn't someone that we know or love, or someone
(03:09):
we shouldn't share information with. One example, if the bank
asks you for your account number, it's not your bank right.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
A call you asking for anything in a past word,
asking for an account number, that's not legit. But again, experience.
I'm a guy who is tries to keep my credit
score right. Tell it everybody, what exactly is experience and
how does it benefit mean?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
So yeah, experience. We're best known as one of the
big three credit reporting companies, so the experience trending equifacts.
So we collect and share in accordance with the fair
credit reporting act. Of course, the credit information, so the
accounts that you have and how you're repaying those debts,
So that's one piece of our business, tell about fraud,
(03:55):
identity theft. We also have a business that helps companies
identify attempts to steal their information or help them recover
when they've had a breach. We also help protect people
from fraud and identity staff so we use information to
help business and lenders, for example, recognize when someone's trying
to use information that they've stolen to get your information.
(04:18):
We have monitoring services that can alert you when something
pops up in your credit history that could indicate your
victim of fraud, so we help make you aware of
potential attempts for fraud. We also have a business that
is an identity verification service. For example, if you're working
with a Social Security administration and you go in to
get your social Security account information, so how much money
(04:42):
you get paid when you retire, which at long way
from but hope to get there's some day that we
have an identity service, so they're using experience information so
when you go in, they're matching it to information that
helps them ensure you are you and not someone who's
trying to access your account fraudulently. So we are working
on a number of fronts to help protect people from
(05:04):
product identity, to have to help them improve their financial lives,
to help them gain access to information that can help
them be more successful.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Now, it is really interesting, and I've heard the word
savvy and then the word financially savvy.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Now I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So help me and help my audience gain a grip
on what financially savvy means.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, when I think of being financially savvy, it's when
you control your money and it doesn't control you. So
you understand how many works you use financial tools to
your advantage. So credit is a financial tool of debts,
the financial problem, and if you can use credit well,
it can give you a financial advantage. For example, if
(05:47):
you have a credit card and you get cash back,
or you get airline miles and you make charges with
that card discounts on purchases and then pay the balance
in full, you're not taking on debt, but you are
getting a financial advance. And that's a financially savvy thing
to do. You know, when you understand investing, which I'm
sure you talk to your listeners about often or saving
(06:08):
and having that emergency savings account when you budget. We
all hate that word, but it's really a tool to
help you be in control of your money rather than
it controlling you. And that's what financially savvy. Being finished
with seventy is all about to me.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I'm speaking with Rod Griffin.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
He's the senior director of Public Education and Advocation for Experience.
You know, I'm gonna tell you this. When the credit score.
You know, my daughter, she's so proud she has an
eight hundred plus. You know, Dad, he's kind of wore down.
I got some credit. My hangs between high sixty and
middle seven hundreds. You know, high six, middle seven hundreds.
(06:44):
So she laughs at me a lot. I said, but
you know you're not living a life yet. Now when
you say credit score, I'm just read it out tomorrow, audience.
They aren't aware what credit score is. Poor is three
hundred to five seventy nine. Fair is five eighty to
six six nine. Good is six seventy to seven three nine.
Very good is seven to seven ninety nine. Excellent is
(07:08):
eight hundred to eight fifty. Now excellent. Everybody wants to
be there, like I said, I hang in that at
seven hundred mid seven hundred range.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
How does this score put together?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Rod? Yeah, and it's and it's just to complicate things further,
there isn't just one score, so there's lots of different
score and so there are three credit reports and that's
where we have to start. Every credit score uses the
information from your credit report to do the calculation. If
(07:42):
you're buying a car, they have a credit score that
just to surprise you, I Fico has a score for
buying a car auto landing score that goes to nine hundred,
not just eight fifty. So if if you want to
win a bet that you have the best scorer, get
your auto score, you might have a better than eight
fifty or win every time. But the thing to understand
(08:02):
is they're all looking at the same stuff. They're all
the information for credit report, and they're all looking at
number one, how you're paying your bills and you're paying
your bills on time or are they late, so like
payments are going to hurt your scores. The second thing
they're looking at is are your balances on your credit
cards really high compared to the credit limits. So if
you can keep your credit card balances down and you
pay your bills on time, you're going to have good
(08:24):
credit scores because everything else builds on those two things.
They look at the length of your credit history, so
how long have you been paying bills and paying them
on time. They look at the mix of kinds of
accounts you have, said you have car loan or own
credit cards, so on. That sort of happens with time
as you use credit, and they'll develop that. They look
at what's happened recently, So if you applied for new accounts,
(08:45):
have you reduced your debts? Have you taken on more debt?
So if you're paying your bills on time, keeping your
balance as little, you will have good credit scores. It's
just behavior over time. You sell people banks like people
who are boring. They don't want anything surprising. Just pay
the bills on time, keep the balances low. Do that
over and over and over you'll have good credit scores.
(09:06):
So there's no real secret. The important thing get your
credit report, know what's in it. It's free. You can
get it once a week from each of the three
bureaus at annual credit report dot com. You can get
a free monitoring service from Experience we'll give you a
free report every thirty days along with a Fiko eights ware,
and most importantly, the factors that are driving that score.
(09:27):
So when you get a credit report and score from Experience,
we give you at least four and sometimes five risk
factors that explain what is having the most negative effect
on the score, so that you can look at your
credit report and pay at what you need to work on. So, yeah,
the thing I tell people is the number doesn't matter,
and they look at me like I'm crazy, because it does.
(09:48):
Of course it does, YEA, yeah, well yes it does
when you're talking to the bank and they're trying to
get a loan. But if we're just like we're talking
right now, right, you know, the number doesn't tell you much.
But if you get your credit report and a number,
then you have something to work on. You have context
around it, so you can look at the risk factors
(10:11):
that go with it, and look at your credit report
and say, okay, it says my balances on my credit
cards are too high. Well, here's the credit cards that
have high balances. That's what I need to focus on.
So it empowers you to act. If all you have
is a number, you can't do anything. You know, if
I said you know, I would to bet that you're
about a seven to eighty. What do you do about that?
(10:31):
But if I said, you know, your balances are about
thirty percent of your credit credit limit on a card,
now you know what you can do to reduce the
bount and to what you need to focus on. So
that's what we want to do, is try not to
focus too much on the number, focus on the credit history.
The number gives you a place to start from.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm Jason Brod. You've already told me some information.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I didn't know the word free reports are free and
you say alerts are free.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I didn't know that. Why.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I just got to ask you, why don't I know,
Rushan MacDonald know that experience you can register for free
to get free reports, free alerts, and free scores send
to your email box on a regular basis. Help me
educate me because I'm sure a lot of people listening
didn't know that either. Because I'm being inundated with all
(11:21):
this fraudulent stuff and experience having stuff that can bring
value to me help me become financially savvy and improve
my financial health.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, so there we have. Of course, different levels of
service with our business, but we have at the base level.
You go to our app, so you can download our
app on your phone or your mobile device, or you
can go to experience dot com and enroll in a
free monitoring service. And you do, you get a free
credit report once a month, You get a free Fyco
eight score and the respectors that go with it. So
(11:54):
the exchange is will offer you potential access to credit cards.
You might qualif five four you can tell us. Here's
the things I'm trying to do. The most powerful word
in credit and finance in general, I think is no
too little letters. So if you get offers, you don't
want them to say no, and that will inform you
with your credit score or your credit report and give
(12:17):
you the power to act on it. The annual credit
report dot com is the free government required site, and
you can get a free report from each of the
three credit bureaus once a week, so you get more
than one hundred a year if you want them. I
guess I mean quite that many, but you can get them.
They typically don't include a credit score, so you can
(12:38):
get free credit reports. If you're a victim of fraud,
you can get free credit reports. So if you got
to experience dot com fraud, if you believe you're a
victim or or are may have been or are, will
give you a free report along with the ability to
at a free fraud alert, and then you can get
reports and take additional actions if you need to. So
there's no real reason to pay for a credit report.
(13:00):
So today you can get free reports. And I always
tell people you should get a report. Why don't they
Usually they tell me they're afraid to see what's in it,
So don't tell me. I asked people, you get your
credit report and raise your hand. I'm talking to the audience,
and you see the heads drop you head, Why you
don't be afraid.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashaun McDonald.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
And I'm gonna tell you this.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
My identity was told and so that's frightening because you're helpless.
You see these credit card bills coming down, and there
was a several stores. They brought a computer over here,
they brought food over here, and it was just shocking.
But the only way I could get it back. Was
I'm gonna just tell you are in save my credit?
(14:01):
You know, with the alerts. I went to you guys,
I told you I fraud was happening. You reacted immediately,
and then the alerts saved me and they start blocking
and it will call me and contact me, is hey,
is this you?
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Is this you make a setting up this account? Is
this you? To get it cleaned up?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It took about about a year, but I got back
back on my feet, And so that goes to my
next question. Establishing your credit rod and rebuilding your credit.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
There are two different things.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
How those ones establish their credit and then how do
they rebuild it?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, so you're right, two different things, and having access
to credit history. Having a credit report is really important
in the financial world. It's one of the first things
that people will often look at. So for example, people
don't know that when you apply for an apartment lease,
they look at a credit report. If you're applying for
(14:56):
utility service, they'll look at a credit report. When you
get a self, they're going to look at your credit report.
So we know about credit cards, are getting a home
on that sort of thing, but it's other parts of
their life too. So establishing credits very important. Several ways
you can do that. One you can have a family member,
friend and you as an authorized user to an account
and then that account would be reported as part of
(15:18):
your credit report. You could apply maybe get qualified for
a small loan and have that reported, but that often
is difficult to do. So experience also is created something
we call Experience Go. When you enroll in our app,
if you do not have a credit report with us,
we'll ask you some questions and we'll actually create a
credit report for you. So you name your address, self
(15:40):
scary numbers, some other details. I'll ask you for a
live selfie, so if you wink or smile so we
know it's you, we'll create a credit report and all
that will have in it is your identifying information. From there,
we have something we call Experience Boost. Experience Boost actually
lets you add your cell phone payments of information, not
(16:00):
negative only positive information, but your positive cell phone payments,
positive utility payments, positive streaming services things like Netflix, Zulu,
your rent potentially, so we work with a number of
property management companies, your insurance payments, and we can capture
up to two years in information. Add that to your
(16:21):
credit report. So it's possible that if you don't have
a credit report at all, with experience, to go from
no credit history to having a credit report plus a
number of accounts credit scores, not having a report to
have a score to scores in the six hundred and
thirty range we've seen in some instances just in a
matter of minutes. So get you started, not a great score,
(16:41):
it's going to get you going. And so that's critical
is just having that credit report, because that's.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Going to saying but consistent payments. If you have a
debit call, that debit.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Call, you have your gas bill or your rent or
your Netflix account tied to that debit call, that shows
assistant payments. That's what you're talking about, and that in
turn can be inputed into your experiment account.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It starts building a base.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Right, and so with Experience Boosts, we connect to you
give us your permission, so it's permission based and tell
us I want to add these accounts and this is
the savings account or checking account, so academic card, checking
account or credit card you pay it with, and we're
able to then capture those payments and for each of
them you tell us you want to add, will add
an account to your credit report, so, and then we'll
(17:31):
immediately show you your score result too. So we give
you another free report and a score when you start
the process, and then we give you a importance score
when you finish in rolling. And you can see if
there's a difference if you are beginning to build credit
or you're working to rehabil it. But I think it's
rehabilitate your credit or rebuild it for most people, that's
when they see the most impacts. If you have thin
(17:51):
credit file, fewer than five accounts, or you've add scores
of less than six hundred eighty or so on a
fi COO eight score, that's who will typically see the
most benefit because there's just not much history there to
calculate score with. And so, and it's free. Again, it's free,
and it's permission based. If you don't want to continue,
you can tell us to stop. We'll remove the accounts.
(18:14):
So again we're trying to give people control of that
information and to make sure that they have a full
picture because those companies might report the negative information if
you don't make those payments, but they don't typically report
the positive information.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Now, as you're building your account, are rebuilding your account.
What are there any additional steps that I've missed in
here in your conversation.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, so several things. So experience boosts might help in
that regard as well. You know, if you've had some
issues and life happens. We all know and have had
those experiences and some things, and so you take steps
to start to recover, get your report know it's there.
Experience boosts might help in those instances because you're adding
positive history. And then it's about you know, having a
(18:57):
small account, making the payments on time every single time,
and that's critical. Work with experience to help you identify
what needs to be take care of. If you've been
a victim of fraud, I was too. I actually had
my tax forms were stolen and so there was a
tax file of my name.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
It's really you like me, you know, that's like when
it happens raw, it's like you just feel so helpless
and then you start trying to figure out how it happens.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And I think another thing.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
That people need to do is, like I use my
credit card a lot, and you really should audit your
monthly billy. Sometimes they'll drop little low payments monthly like
twenty five dollars or fifteen dollars and they'll just build
up over time and you don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I've caught that on.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
My credit card statement because I run a business and
so because people will sell your credit card information off
and people will start charging monthly low monthly charges that
you might not recognize, but it's so low that you
don't have time to go back and worry about trying
to identify because give her any charge off of a
(20:07):
credit card is not credit card bill is not easy. Now,
rock you know, I'm trying to maintain a financial savvy behavior.
My health, I'm going to use the word health. You know,
we're in the fourth quarter twenty twenty four, going into
twenty twenty five. Should we prepare or can we prepare
(20:29):
the prior year before you go into the new year
being financially healthy?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Absolutely? And you know it's about setting goals. And I
always tell people, you know, talking about money can be hard,
and so I use my personal life. My wife and
I talk about money all the time, but we're usually
not talking about money when you think about it later.
So a money conversation doesn't have to be you know,
(20:58):
a confrontational sort of thing for us It could be
do we want to go out to dinner tonight or
do we want to wait until the weekend because we
want to do something later? So where are we going
to spend that money? It's the real question. But it's
a goal setting. Do we want to have a vacation
in next year? So we start talking about personal goals
(21:19):
and goals we have together rather than the money itself.
And so I tell people start from there because it
makes start from a goal perspective. What do you want
to do in life? And that could be this month,
it could be next year, it could be in five years,
and set those goals and then start looking at what
is the money equation? How do I make sure I
(21:40):
have the financial resources to achieve those goals? And it
helps set up more positive approach instead of letting money
become a problem and then having to figure out how
to recover from a problem. Set a goal and start
looking forward and head check your credit report, make sure
that you're setting aside savings. Build a budget, call us
spending plan if you like. I have a college professor
(22:01):
friend who does that. So it doesn't like budget. Okay,
I'm from Texas, some kind of stubborn it's a budget.
I'm gonna call it.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
No state income taxes Texas. Your good brother over there
in Georgia, they're killing me there. They're killing me, Rob.
I'm gonna tell you this, Rob, you know, and just
listening to you, and I hope everybody's listening to just
when you're doing.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
If you if you're buying groceries and they got.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
A grocery account, a loyalty plan, get it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
I do that. I get discounts on my gas.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
If I buy groceries on a Friday, I get triple
points which go to my gas. I have a credit
card where if I buy charges on my credit card,
it gets me faster on my Frequent Flyer plan. And
then on my freaking fly plan, I got membership miles.
That's what you was talking about, being savvy when it
comes to how you dealing with your finances and things
(22:56):
like that. And I think the big takeaway and I
are and hearing you talk about experience as this. Just
look at what's out there, you know, and make sure
you're aware of the advantages, because you there are some
things that can be saved with You're in car insurance.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right, yeah, and so exactly right, you're living my life
because I just bought gas yesterday. I say ninety cents
a gallop because a grocery card, right, So you know,
so the same thing. And when it comes to car insurance,
same issue. You know it's insurance is expensive. We've seen
what inflation has done over the last couple of years.
Insurance rates are up more than twenty percent over the
(23:33):
last year. And Experience actually has introduced another we're talking
about what experience does. We've introduced an Experience Insurance auto
insurance marketplace, and we help you shop for better insurance.
We work with forty of the largest insurance providers in
the country and we help find the best rates based
on where you live, what you need, kind of insurance levels,
(23:56):
you know, meeting the minimum requirements, and try to help
you shop apples apples. What we found is for people
that are working with their marketplace, they save on average
about eight hundred dollars a year, so not just a
small amount of money. And the other thing that we'll
do is help shop for you because shopping for insurance
can be difficult. You want to make sure you're getting
(24:17):
the same offers for the same coverages. I want to
make sure you're meeting your state minimum requirements for auto insurance,
for example, and it can be difficult and confusing. So
we will monitor for you. If you change insurance providers
with us, we'll monitor for you. If we find a
better rate, we'll tell you and you can decide whether
you want to then shop for change providers and get
(24:38):
you an even better rate as they come along, so
you don't have to continually shop yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Wow. He's a senior director Public Education Advocacs of Experience.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I'm going to tell you, I want to thank you
for coming on money making conversations. My big takeaway is
now one more audiz because some people I don't want
to do coopon.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I don't want to shop like that. I shop with coupons.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I we shopped so much that I get free food
right there, said to be a coupon saying hey, here's
some free this, here's some free this, here's some free this.
Because they want my business and so and some things
you know will be six dollars eight dollars nine dollars
savings on that particular sale if I didn't come in there.
And I think the big walk away is just be
(25:25):
financially savvy. Just let's see what's out there. Because, like
you said, when you got that ninety cents off off
your gas bill and filling up, that when I get
three cents off or I get ten cents off, I
get forty cents off per gallon. Now per gallon, that
goes a long way. Thank you for coming on money
making conversation, masterclof Brob.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
But I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I did very much. Thank you for having me, and
if I can ever join again, let me know. I'm
happy to clearly happy to talk. I love it. Well.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
You know I'm gonna have you back in the first
of the year because you know it's always patterns. You know,
people right now they're shopping, They're gonna go out there
and by gifts they can't afford buy food for these
big Thanksgiving spreads.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
When we come back in January February with me.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
We're gonna be talking about there's charges that you that
you raised and now is impacting your credit score. How
do we fix it? So Rob, we have a relationship.
My brother and I appreciate you taking the time to
come in the fall before it starts. So when we
talk to them in the spring after.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
They've done their little run awesome. Appreciate you, brother, talk
to you soon.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Man than you.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversation Masterclass
posted by me Rushaun McDonald. Thank you to our guests
on the show today and thank you listening to audience now.
If you want to listen to any episode I want
to be a guest on the show, visit Moneymaking Conversations
dot com. Our social media handle is money Making Conversation.
Join us next week and remember to always leave with
(26:53):
your gifts. Keep winning.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I am Rashwan McDonald, the host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass,
where we encourage.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
People to stop reading other people's success stories and start
planning their own. Listen up as I interview entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
From around the country, talk to celebrities and ask them
how they are running their companies, and speak with non
profits who are making a difference in their local communities. Now,
sit back and listen as we unlock the secrets to
their success on Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Hi, I am
Rashaan McDonald, our host this weekly Money Making Conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Master Class show.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The interviews and information that this show provides off for everyone.
It's time to stop reading other people's success stories and
start living your own. I'm here to help you reach
your American dream. My guest is the senior director of
Public Education and Advocacy for Experience. He leaves experienced national
consumer education programs and works with consumer advocates, financial education,
(01:00):
media and others to help consumers increase their ability to
understand and manage their personal finances and protect themselves from
fraud and identity there please welcome the Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Rod Grifforth, how you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Rock fantastic, glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, thank you for coming on the show, because I'm
gonna tell you some broad my email. My phone is
being inundated with messages that I don't know if it's
real or not. It looks like it may be a bank,
it looks like it may be a credit card. Tell
me what's going on, because I want to start our
conversation with what you said right here, educating us about
(01:40):
fraud and identity there.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, so we all get the notices of data breaches,
we all get the emails. I get them too, and
sometimes phone calls as well. And you know, fraud is
something that everybody's after today. I sometimes tell people that
the currency for today of today isn't necessarily cash. It's information,
(02:03):
and a lot of times it's personal information. It's your identity.
Because if they can steal your identity, they can use
it to do all sorts of things. They can use
it to try to apply for frauduct credit accounts, they
can use it to apply for IDs, for government benefits,
for all sorts of things. So the identity thieves are
(02:24):
busy trying to trick us into giving them our information.
Our personal and private information, our financial information, so that
they can use it to their gain and against us.
So it's a huge problem and they're getting more sophisticated
about it. And artificial intelligence is something that's actually something
we're even more concerned about today because you may not
(02:48):
even be talking to a person now or getting an
email from a person. It could be a machine that
is posing as someone you know and playing on those
emotional heartstrings to get you to give them and from
and that's what they want. So we have to learn
to kind of recognize those and to know when it
probably isn't someone that we know or love, or someone
(03:09):
we shouldn't share information with. One example, if the bank
asks you for your account number, it's not your bank right.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
A call you asking for anything in a past word,
asking for an account number, that's not legit. But again, experience.
I'm a guy who is tries to keep my credit
score right. Tell it everybody, what exactly is experience and
how does it benefit mean?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
So yeah, experience. We're best known as one of the
big three credit reporting companies, so the experience trending equifacts.
So we collect and share in accordance with the fair
credit reporting act. Of course, the credit information, so the
accounts that you have and how you're repaying those debts,
So that's one piece of our business, tell about fraud,
(03:55):
identity theft. We also have a business that helps companies
identify attempts to steal their information or help them recover
when they've had a breach. We also help protect people
from fraud and identity staff so we use information to
help business and lenders, for example, recognize when someone's trying
to use information that they've stolen to get your information.
(04:18):
We have monitoring services that can alert you when something
pops up in your credit history that could indicate your
victim of fraud, so we help make you aware of
potential attempts for fraud. We also have a business that
is an identity verification service. For example, if you're working
with a Social Security administration and you go in to
get your social Security account information, so how much money
(04:42):
you get paid when you retire, which at long way
from but hope to get there's some day that we
have an identity service, so they're using experience information so
when you go in, they're matching it to information that
helps them ensure you are you and not someone who's
trying to access your account fraudulently. So we are working
on a number of fronts to help protect people from
(05:04):
product identity, to have to help them improve their financial lives,
to help them gain access to information that can help
them be more successful.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Now, it is really interesting, and I've heard the word
savvy and then the word financially savvy.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Now I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So help me and help my audience gain a grip
on what financially savvy means.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, when I think of being financially savvy, it's when
you control your money and it doesn't control you. So
you understand how many works you use financial tools to
your advantage. So credit is a financial tool of debts,
the financial problem, and if you can use credit well,
it can give you a financial advantage. For example, if
(05:47):
you have a credit card and you get cash back,
or you get airline miles and you make charges with
that card discounts on purchases and then pay the balance
in full, you're not taking on debt, but you are
getting a financial advance. And that's a financially savvy thing
to do. You know, when you understand investing, which I'm
sure you talk to your listeners about often or saving
(06:08):
and having that emergency savings account when you budget. We
all hate that word, but it's really a tool to
help you be in control of your money rather than
it controlling you. And that's what financially savvy. Being finished
with seventy is all about to me.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I'm speaking with Rod Griffin.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
He's the senior director of Public Education and Advocation for Experience.
You know, I'm gonna tell you this. When the credit score.
You know, my daughter, she's so proud she has an
eight hundred plus. You know, Dad, he's kind of wore down.
I got some credit. My hangs between high sixty and
middle seven hundreds. You know, high six, middle seven hundreds.
(06:44):
So she laughs at me a lot. I said, but
you know you're not living a life yet. Now when
you say credit score, I'm just read it out tomorrow, audience.
They aren't aware what credit score is. Poor is three
hundred to five seventy nine. Fair is five eighty to
six six nine. Good is six seventy to seven three nine.
Very good is seven to seven ninety nine. Excellent is
(07:08):
eight hundred to eight fifty. Now excellent. Everybody wants to
be there, like I said, I hang in that at
seven hundred mid seven hundred range.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
How does this score put together?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Rod? Yeah, and it's and it's just to complicate things further,
there isn't just one score, so there's lots of different
score and so there are three credit reports and that's
where we have to start. Every credit score uses the
information from your credit report to do the calculation. If
(07:42):
you're buying a car, they have a credit score that
just to surprise you, I Fico has a score for
buying a car auto landing score that goes to nine hundred,
not just eight fifty. So if if you want to
win a bet that you have the best scorer, get
your auto score, you might have a better than eight
fifty or win every time. But the thing to understand
(08:02):
is they're all looking at the same stuff. They're all
the information for credit report, and they're all looking at
number one, how you're paying your bills and you're paying
your bills on time or are they late, so like
payments are going to hurt your scores. The second thing
they're looking at is are your balances on your credit
cards really high compared to the credit limits. So if
you can keep your credit card balances down and you
pay your bills on time, you're going to have good
(08:24):
credit scores because everything else builds on those two things.
They look at the length of your credit history, so
how long have you been paying bills and paying them
on time. They look at the mix of kinds of
accounts you have, said you have car loan or own
credit cards, so on. That sort of happens with time
as you use credit, and they'll develop that. They look
at what's happened recently, So if you applied for new accounts,
(08:45):
have you reduced your debts? Have you taken on more debt?
So if you're paying your bills on time, keeping your
balance as little, you will have good credit scores. It's
just behavior over time. You sell people banks like people
who are boring. They don't want anything surprising. Just pay
the bills on time, keep the balances low. Do that
over and over and over you'll have good credit scores.
(09:06):
So there's no real secret. The important thing get your
credit report, know what's in it. It's free. You can
get it once a week from each of the three
bureaus at annual credit report dot com. You can get
a free monitoring service from Experience we'll give you a
free report every thirty days along with a Fiko eights ware,
and most importantly, the factors that are driving that score.
(09:27):
So when you get a credit report and score from Experience,
we give you at least four and sometimes five risk
factors that explain what is having the most negative effect
on the score, so that you can look at your
credit report and pay at what you need to work on. So, yeah,
the thing I tell people is the number doesn't matter,
and they look at me like I'm crazy, because it does.
(09:48):
Of course it does, YEA, yeah, well yes it does
when you're talking to the bank and they're trying to
get a loan. But if we're just like we're talking
right now, right, you know, the number doesn't tell you much.
But if you get your credit report and a number,
then you have something to work on. You have context
around it, so you can look at the risk factors
(10:11):
that go with it, and look at your credit report
and say, okay, it says my balances on my credit
cards are too high. Well, here's the credit cards that
have high balances. That's what I need to focus on.
So it empowers you to act. If all you have
is a number, you can't do anything. You know, if
I said you know, I would to bet that you're
about a seven to eighty. What do you do about that?
(10:31):
But if I said, you know, your balances are about
thirty percent of your credit credit limit on a card,
now you know what you can do to reduce the
bount and to what you need to focus on. So
that's what we want to do, is try not to
focus too much on the number, focus on the credit history.
The number gives you a place to start from.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm Jason Brod. You've already told me some information.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I didn't know the word free reports are free and
you say alerts are free.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I didn't know that. Why.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I just got to ask you, why don't I know,
Rushan MacDonald know that experience you can register for free
to get free reports, free alerts, and free scores send
to your email box on a regular basis. Help me
educate me because I'm sure a lot of people listening
didn't know that either. Because I'm being inundated with all
(11:21):
this fraudulent stuff and experience having stuff that can bring
value to me help me become financially savvy and improve
my financial health.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, so there we have. Of course, different levels of
service with our business, but we have at the base level.
You go to our app, so you can download our
app on your phone or your mobile device, or you
can go to experience dot com and enroll in a
free monitoring service. And you do, you get a free
credit report once a month, You get a free Fyco
eight score and the respectors that go with it. So
(11:54):
the exchange is will offer you potential access to credit cards.
You might qualif five four you can tell us. Here's
the things I'm trying to do. The most powerful word
in credit and finance in general, I think is no
too little letters. So if you get offers, you don't
want them to say no, and that will inform you
with your credit score or your credit report and give
(12:17):
you the power to act on it. The annual credit
report dot com is the free government required site, and
you can get a free report from each of the
three credit bureaus once a week, so you get more
than one hundred a year if you want them. I
guess I mean quite that many, but you can get them.
They typically don't include a credit score, so you can
(12:38):
get free credit reports. If you're a victim of fraud,
you can get free credit reports. So if you got
to experience dot com fraud, if you believe you're a
victim or or are may have been or are, will
give you a free report along with the ability to
at a free fraud alert, and then you can get
reports and take additional actions if you need to. So
there's no real reason to pay for a credit report.
(13:00):
So today you can get free reports. And I always
tell people you should get a report. Why don't they
Usually they tell me they're afraid to see what's in it,
So don't tell me. I asked people, you get your
credit report and raise your hand. I'm talking to the audience,
and you see the heads drop you head, Why you
don't be afraid.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashaun McDonald.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
And I'm gonna tell you this.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
My identity was told and so that's frightening because you're helpless.
You see these credit card bills coming down, and there
was a several stores. They brought a computer over here,
they brought food over here, and it was just shocking.
But the only way I could get it back. Was
I'm gonna just tell you are in save my credit?
(14:01):
You know, with the alerts. I went to you guys,
I told you I fraud was happening. You reacted immediately,
and then the alerts saved me and they start blocking
and it will call me and contact me, is hey,
is this you?
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Is this you make a setting up this account? Is
this you? To get it cleaned up?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It took about about a year, but I got back
back on my feet, And so that goes to my
next question. Establishing your credit rod and rebuilding your credit.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
There are two different things.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
How those ones establish their credit and then how do
they rebuild it?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, so you're right, two different things, and having access
to credit history. Having a credit report is really important
in the financial world. It's one of the first things
that people will often look at. So for example, people
don't know that when you apply for an apartment lease,
they look at a credit report. If you're applying for
(14:56):
utility service, they'll look at a credit report. When you
get a self, they're going to look at your credit report.
So we know about credit cards, are getting a home
on that sort of thing, but it's other parts of
their life too. So establishing credits very important. Several ways
you can do that. One you can have a family member,
friend and you as an authorized user to an account
and then that account would be reported as part of
(15:18):
your credit report. You could apply maybe get qualified for
a small loan and have that reported, but that often
is difficult to do. So experience also is created something
we call Experience Go. When you enroll in our app,
if you do not have a credit report with us,
we'll ask you some questions and we'll actually create a
credit report for you. So you name your address, self
(15:40):
scary numbers, some other details. I'll ask you for a
live selfie, so if you wink or smile so we
know it's you, we'll create a credit report and all
that will have in it is your identifying information. From there,
we have something we call Experience Boost. Experience Boost actually
lets you add your cell phone payments of information, not
(16:00):
negative only positive information, but your positive cell phone payments,
positive utility payments, positive streaming services things like Netflix, Zulu,
your rent potentially, so we work with a number of
property management companies, your insurance payments, and we can capture
up to two years in information. Add that to your
(16:21):
credit report. So it's possible that if you don't have
a credit report at all, with experience, to go from
no credit history to having a credit report plus a
number of accounts credit scores, not having a report to
have a score to scores in the six hundred and
thirty range we've seen in some instances just in a
matter of minutes. So get you started, not a great score,
(16:41):
it's going to get you going. And so that's critical
is just having that credit report, because that's.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Going to saying but consistent payments. If you have a
debit call, that debit.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Call, you have your gas bill or your rent or
your Netflix account tied to that debit call, that shows
assistant payments. That's what you're talking about, and that in
turn can be inputed into your experiment account.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It starts building a base.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Right, and so with Experience Boosts, we connect to you
give us your permission, so it's permission based and tell
us I want to add these accounts and this is
the savings account or checking account, so academic card, checking
account or credit card you pay it with, and we're
able to then capture those payments and for each of
them you tell us you want to add, will add
an account to your credit report, so, and then we'll
(17:31):
immediately show you your score result too. So we give
you another free report and a score when you start
the process, and then we give you a importance score
when you finish in rolling. And you can see if
there's a difference if you are beginning to build credit
or you're working to rehabil it. But I think it's
rehabilitate your credit or rebuild it for most people, that's
when they see the most impacts. If you have thin
(17:51):
credit file, fewer than five accounts, or you've add scores
of less than six hundred eighty or so on a
fi COO eight score, that's who will typically see the
most benefit because there's just not much history there to
calculate score with. And so, and it's free. Again, it's free,
and it's permission based. If you don't want to continue,
you can tell us to stop. We'll remove the accounts.
(18:14):
So again we're trying to give people control of that
information and to make sure that they have a full
picture because those companies might report the negative information if
you don't make those payments, but they don't typically report
the positive information.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Now, as you're building your account, are rebuilding your account.
What are there any additional steps that I've missed in
here in your conversation.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, so several things. So experience boosts might help in
that regard as well. You know, if you've had some
issues and life happens. We all know and have had
those experiences and some things, and so you take steps
to start to recover, get your report know it's there.
Experience boosts might help in those instances because you're adding
positive history. And then it's about you know, having a
(18:57):
small account, making the payments on time every single time,
and that's critical. Work with experience to help you identify
what needs to be take care of. If you've been
a victim of fraud, I was too. I actually had
my tax forms were stolen and so there was a
tax file of my name.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
It's really you like me, you know, that's like when
it happens raw, it's like you just feel so helpless
and then you start trying to figure out how it happens.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And I think another thing.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
That people need to do is, like I use my
credit card a lot, and you really should audit your
monthly billy. Sometimes they'll drop little low payments monthly like
twenty five dollars or fifteen dollars and they'll just build
up over time and you don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I've caught that on.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
My credit card statement because I run a business and
so because people will sell your credit card information off
and people will start charging monthly low monthly charges that
you might not recognize, but it's so low that you
don't have time to go back and worry about trying
to identify because give her any charge off of a
(20:07):
credit card is not credit card bill is not easy. Now,
rock you know, I'm trying to maintain a financial savvy behavior.
My health, I'm going to use the word health. You know,
we're in the fourth quarter twenty twenty four, going into
twenty twenty five. Should we prepare or can we prepare
(20:29):
the prior year before you go into the new year
being financially healthy?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Absolutely? And you know it's about setting goals. And I
always tell people, you know, talking about money can be hard,
and so I use my personal life. My wife and
I talk about money all the time, but we're usually
not talking about money when you think about it later.
So a money conversation doesn't have to be you know,
(20:58):
a confrontational sort of thing for us It could be
do we want to go out to dinner tonight or
do we want to wait until the weekend because we
want to do something later? So where are we going
to spend that money? It's the real question. But it's
a goal setting. Do we want to have a vacation
in next year? So we start talking about personal goals
(21:19):
and goals we have together rather than the money itself.
And so I tell people start from there because it
makes start from a goal perspective. What do you want
to do in life? And that could be this month,
it could be next year, it could be in five years,
and set those goals and then start looking at what
is the money equation? How do I make sure I
(21:40):
have the financial resources to achieve those goals? And it
helps set up more positive approach instead of letting money
become a problem and then having to figure out how
to recover from a problem. Set a goal and start
looking forward and head check your credit report, make sure
that you're setting aside savings. Build a budget, call us
spending plan if you like. I have a college professor
(22:01):
friend who does that. So it doesn't like budget. Okay,
I'm from Texas, some kind of stubborn it's a budget.
I'm gonna call it.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
No state income taxes Texas. Your good brother over there
in Georgia, they're killing me there. They're killing me, Rob.
I'm gonna tell you this, Rob, you know, and just
listening to you, and I hope everybody's listening to just
when you're doing.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
If you if you're buying groceries and they got.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
A grocery account, a loyalty plan, get it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
I do that. I get discounts on my gas.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
If I buy groceries on a Friday, I get triple
points which go to my gas. I have a credit
card where if I buy charges on my credit card,
it gets me faster on my Frequent Flyer plan. And
then on my freaking fly plan, I got membership miles.
That's what you was talking about, being savvy when it
comes to how you dealing with your finances and things
(22:56):
like that. And I think the big takeaway and I
are and hearing you talk about experience as this. Just
look at what's out there, you know, and make sure
you're aware of the advantages, because you there are some
things that can be saved with You're in car insurance.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right, yeah, and so exactly right, you're living my life
because I just bought gas yesterday. I say ninety cents
a gallop because a grocery card, right, So you know,
so the same thing. And when it comes to car insurance,
same issue. You know it's insurance is expensive. We've seen
what inflation has done over the last couple of years.
Insurance rates are up more than twenty percent over the
(23:33):
last year. And Experience actually has introduced another we're talking
about what experience does. We've introduced an Experience Insurance auto
insurance marketplace, and we help you shop for better insurance.
We work with forty of the largest insurance providers in
the country and we help find the best rates based
on where you live, what you need, kind of insurance levels,
(23:56):
you know, meeting the minimum requirements, and try to help
you shop apples apples. What we found is for people
that are working with their marketplace, they save on average
about eight hundred dollars a year, so not just a
small amount of money. And the other thing that we'll
do is help shop for you because shopping for insurance
can be difficult. You want to make sure you're getting
(24:17):
the same offers for the same coverages. I want to
make sure you're meeting your state minimum requirements for auto insurance,
for example, and it can be difficult and confusing. So
we will monitor for you. If you change insurance providers
with us, we'll monitor for you. If we find a
better rate, we'll tell you and you can decide whether
you want to then shop for change providers and get
(24:38):
you an even better rate as they come along, so
you don't have to continually shop yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Wow. He's a senior director Public Education Advocacs of Experience.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I'm going to tell you, I want to thank you
for coming on money making conversations. My big takeaway is
now one more audiz because some people I don't want
to do coopon.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I don't want to shop like that. I shop with coupons.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I we shopped so much that I get free food
right there, said to be a coupon saying hey, here's
some free this, here's some free this, here's some free this.
Because they want my business and so and some things
you know will be six dollars eight dollars nine dollars
savings on that particular sale if I didn't come in there.
And I think the big walk away is just be
(25:25):
financially savvy. Just let's see what's out there. Because, like
you said, when you got that ninety cents off off
your gas bill and filling up, that when I get
three cents off or I get ten cents off, I
get forty cents off per gallon. Now per gallon, that
goes a long way. Thank you for coming on money
making conversation, masterclof Brob.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
But I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I did very much. Thank you for having me, and
if I can ever join again, let me know. I'm
happy to clearly happy to talk. I love it. Well.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
You know I'm gonna have you back in the first
of the year because you know it's always patterns. You know,
people right now they're shopping, They're gonna go out there
and by gifts they can't afford buy food for these
big Thanksgiving spreads.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
When we come back in January February with me.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
We're gonna be talking about there's charges that you that
you raised and now is impacting your credit score. How
do we fix it? So Rob, we have a relationship.
My brother and I appreciate you taking the time to
come in the fall before it starts. So when we
talk to them in the spring after.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
They've done their little run awesome. Appreciate you, brother, talk
to you soon.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Man than you.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversation Masterclass
posted by me Rushaun McDonald. Thank you to our guests
on the show today and thank you listening to audience now.
If you want to listen to any episode I want
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