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Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) criticized credit reporting agencies on Sunday for newly developed scores that have little to do with credit, including the so called “Medication Adherence Score” and the “Income Insight Score.”

FICO’s “Medication Adherence Score” is a method of determining a patient’s compliance with taking medication prescribed by a doctor which taps pharmacy data including information about length of employment, verification of home address, their age and whether they live alone or not. These metrics are compiled into score which insurance companies use to determine how much in premiums to charge, according to Schumer.

Experian’s “Income Insight Score” is a system to predict a consumer’s income, extending its results to credit card issuers and home mortgage lenders.

Schumer has requested that FCC Chairman Jon Leibowitz investigate these new ratings and the credit bureaus’ legality in withholding the information from consumers as a possible violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

“They’re back to their old tricks and they need to be reined in,” Schumer told a group of reporters in his office.

The FCRA requires credit bureaus to provide consumers with the same credit scores that credit card companies and banks utilize to determine loan and credit extension eligibility. Both Experian and FICO assert that these scores aren’t covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Schumer said that if the FCC concurs with him he will put together new legislation to extend to consumers the personal information he believes they’re entitled to.

“These new consumer scores are just the tip of the iceberg — they intend to keep scores on us about everything,” Schumer said.

In this article I will reveal a secret weapon that you can use against credit card debt elimination.

Before I start do discuss this strategy, let us just look briefly at the common marketing methods that are used by the card companies to recruit you as their customer.

It’s hard to find any merchants better at marketing their products than the credit cards companies. These companies spend huge amounts on advertising their credit offers. You will find offers and ads in your mailbox, on TV, in magazines and all over the internet

If you have suffered due to credit card debt you view those commercials with a cynical eye. On TV, the sixty second ads imply having a credit card will lead to a better life. The actors are laughing, shopping, traveling and telling viewers the benefit of buying something special is “priceless”.

The commercials are meant to portray a credit card as a product you need to live a good life. We may have believed that when we applied for our first credit account. But if you have been caught with credit card bankruptcy you will never fall for these commercials again.

You have a secret weapon that you should use as a part of your credit card debt elimination arsenal. That weapon is a “debt budget”. It is not shiny and doesn’t excite you when you think about it. There is no fancy design and no happy crowd of users having a party. Yet it is what you need to fight predatory lenders and win.

Pundits can analyze and discuss credit card debt solutions and the government can make new laws prohibiting some of the worst lending practices. The talking and the laws may prevent some new credit users from getting into trouble but won’t help those of us who are carrying heavy debts now. It doesn’t help after the fact to point fingers or feel guilty or assign blame. What will help you is using the budget weapon with precision.

Face the fact – you are in trouble. You have not been living within your means. You have charged and shopped and charged more until the debt is a frightening monster in your life. You may panic or become depressed or consider using debt programs to solve the problem, yet eventually the debt monster must be faced.

Like diets, budgets are often regarded as depriving you of things you want in your life. In truth, budgets and diets require taking control of your life. You are giving to yourself, not taking away. To make a simple budget list all of your monthly obligations on the left side of a page.

On the right side of the page list your sources of income. Now, total the two columns. If the spending on the left is more than the income in the right hand column, you know you are in trouble.

If the income is more than your monthly payments and yet you run out of money or have to scramble to meet bills each month perhaps you are making more cash purchases and impulse buys than you realize.

Divide your monthly payments into categories of fixed expenses (mortgage/rent, car payment, utility costs) and variable expenses (food, gasoline, and clothing. The last category is discretionary spending. This is the money you spend by choice such as the expensive coffees, entertainment, hobby costs and impulse buys.

If you don’t know how much you have spent on a particular category in the past few months, dig out those receipts and establish a dollar figure to use in your budget. It’s not easy and a budget is not fun when you are starting it. Don’t give up and don’t make excuses for not following your budget.

Be realistic when adding figures to your budget. Planning to reduce spending on a certain area won’t work if it only appears on paper. Make rules for yourself to follow such as waiting 24 hours before making an impulse purchase. Stop using your credit cards until the balances are paid.

Once you have mastered living on a budget that works, you should take further steps towards the credit card debt relief. This might be transferring your card debt to a new card offering 0% interest or doubling the payments you currently make to reduce the debt quickly. Make a budget your secret weapon against debt and follow it carefully and you will reach the credit card debt elimination border faster than you think.

Sometimes people have heard the word charged off from their creditors saying the account is charged off. Charged off credit cards occur because customers are unable to make payments on time. When you are late in paying the bills and you are unable to keep up with the payments on credit cards your account is charged off and you will have charged off credit cards. Accurise is a company that does the best services in the credit repair industry. Accurise offers unparalleled service at a reasonable price. Accurise has experienced credit analysts who deal with situations, such as charged off credit cards, on a regular basis.

Many people think that charged off credit cards result it is the cancellation of a charge. In reality, however, it is not so. In other words is you cannot charge your credit card anymore because it has become charged off credit cards. The best of Accurise is all their representatives and workers know their legal limits and work with it. Bill collectors, banks and creditors say that charged off credit cards come at the point where the creditor declares your account as a bad debt. Charged off credit cards occur when you dont pay the settlement in a timely fashion. From that point, they will not consider or count it for their accounting purposes. They consider the charged off credit cards as a loss. But still you need to pay the payment. The creditors will certainly make many actions to collect the money from you.

Charged off credit cards are a negative issue but it is not a financial ruination, no matter the lengths that creditors will make you think that it is. Even if your account is charged off, it is still definitely not the end of the world. The bill collector sound menacing and put more stress on you to make the bill settled. Having good credit is an important factor to be noted down. Negotiate with the creditor to resolve and remove the charge off. You have to negotiate very politely and you should talk very professionally. The main point is you do not have to blame the creditors at anytime when you are negotiating. Do not tell them personal stories. Rather, show that you can be financially responsible from this point forward. Be aware of what you need and be short to point. You can pay the settlement and remove items from charged off credit cards if you have negotiated well. It would be better to at least pay the minimum of your balance in all instances.

My 1998 Jeep Cherokee and I had a pretty rough holiday season. Luckily, we came out of it a little wiser about cost-saving car maintenance tasks. As a friend of mine in the car business says, You make monthly payments on any car you get—with an old car, its just in repairs and extra maintenance.” True enough. As hard as it is to set aside funds for ongoing repairs and maintenance, it can save you from expensive, unexpected repairs like I just had. Keep these in mind:

1.    Fluid check frenzy. Even those of us who aren’t car savvy can learn to check fluid levels regularly; including oil, coolant, power steering and transmission. 2.    Oil changes, baby. Most experts recommend having your oil and filter changed every 3,000 miles or 6 months. Look online for the specific recommendations for your ride. 3.    Totally tires. Stay on top of tire alignment, pressure and wear by checking the pressure once a month and replacing tires if the wear bars are flush with the surface of the tread. 4.    Ooh la la air filters. These need to be changed out every couple of months to about a year, depending on where you drive. 5.    About auto transmission. Staying on top of your automatic transmission can save you from transmission failure (yikes)! Experts recommend changing the fluid and filters every 25k to 30k miles. 6.    Coolant craze. Most vehicle manufacturers recommend changing coolant every 2 to 3 years or 30k miles. Side note: Watch for sinking levels, which can mean a leak. 7.    Brake for brakes. Have your mechanic check your brakes at least once a year. As for brake fluid, check it regularly and have it changed every 2 to 3 years. 8.    Go fuel filter. Changing it every 30k miles is the standard; a new filter can cost just $20 and save you from thousands of dollars in damage.

These are a few tips to start with; you can get more in-depth and expert info. from Car Talk and edmunds.com.  Remember that choosing a good, honest mechanic is an important part of staying on top of preventative maintenance—online reviews and referrals from friends are a good place to start.

Though only five years old, Mint.com has quickly established itself as a highly recognized personal finance management web-service. For the uninitiated, Mint.com has been listed by Time Magazine as a top-50 website for the last three consecutive years and is the winner of the Webby Award for Excellence on the Internet for Best Financial Service in 2009, 2010, and 2011, beating out financial news giants CNNMoney, NY Times Dealbook, Nerdwallet and Yahoo! Finance.

Mint.com allows its users to aggregate their banking accounts, investments, insurance policies, IRAs and mortgages into its management system which automatically provides up-to-date categorization, support and tools for budgeting analysis and bill reminder services. Their services are essential for those wanting to take control of their financial lives and improve their credit scores. Best of all, Mint.com is completely free.

The site was conceived by Aaron Patzer in 2006 after quitting his day job as a software architect to develop a method for analyzing numerous financial documents with high accuracy. After gaining the interest of First Round Capital, Mint.com received the seed capital to further develop their concept. Patzer’s ideas ambitions became so popular that grabbed the attention of Intuit, a financial software company and maker of Quicken, which extended an offer to purchase Mint.com for $170 million in late 2009.

CreditRepair.org was granted an opportunity to gain some insight into the company from Aaron Forth, Inuit’s Vice President and General Manager of Personal Finance Group.

CreditRepair.org: How does the current Mint.com differ from the founder’s initial vision for creating it?

Aaron Forth: When Aaron Patzer created Mint, his goal was to answer one simple question: How much did he spend this month? And on what? Aaron created Mint based on the philosophy that money is for living, and with every new feature or product update from bill reminders to Mint’s new iPad app — Mint is giving users a full financial view so they can save, spend and do more with their money. Mint does not differ from Aaron’s initial vision; it is just becoming an extended version that offers more features and helps nearly 7 million people do more with their money.

CR: How has becoming part of the Intuit family affected Mint?

AF: Mint was acquired by Intuit in November 2009 and since then the Mint team has successfully integrated with Intuit’s Personal Finance Group — incorporating Intuit company goals, philosophies and best practices into each product or feature we create. We have been lucky to be able to learn from such a successful financial company and implement their strategies into making the Mint product the best it can be, as well as being able to contribute to the creation and updates of existing products like Quicken.

CR: How does Mint differentiate from the competition like Learnvest.com and Manilla.com?

AF: Mint.com is a completely free online personal finance software that allows users to see all their financial accounts in one place, making it easy to set and keep to budgets, helping identify money saving ideas and managing money on the go with its iPhone, Android and iPad apps. From bill reminders to Ways to Save to the Goals feature, Mint is a constant resource to help users stay on top of their finances. Users can find a great number of tips and advice on the MintLife blog and learn about the importance of good money management at an early age with Mint’s Financial Literacy program. Mint offers a FULL view of all finances for every stage of life.

CR: Are you planning to add bill payment as a paid feature/add-on for Mint users?

AF: Mint currently offers a bill reminders feature that alerts users when an upcoming bill is due, but does not have the specific bill pay feature. Mint is always looking into new ways to help our users have the most complete financial management experience.

CR: Security is a big issue that comes up when Mint.com is mentioned, what measures are taken to ensure security of user’s finances?

AF: Security is a top priority that Mint takes very seriously. Mint uses the same 128-bit encryption and physical security that banks use. Mint’s practices are monitored and verified by TRUSTe, VeriSign and Hackersafe, and supported by RSA Security. Mint is also a “read-only” service, meaning you can organize and analyze your finances, but you can’t move funds between —or out of — any account using Mint. And neither can anyone else. In addition, Mint increases your financial security through email and text alerts that notify you about any large purchases or unusual changes in your accounts and more.

CR: What else is in the cards for Mint’s future?

AF: Mint is always looking toward the future and finding innovative ways to improve existing products and features along with creating new ones. Mobile is a big initiative for Mint and is something the company, as a whole, will be focusing on for a long time to come. With the recent release of the iPad app and constant improvements to the existing iPhone and Android apps, Mint is available anytime, anyplace. We are always making sure everyone has the resources to be financially literate with tools like our current Financial Literacy program and creating more ways to help people save by providing reliable advice, tips and resources in order to use money for living.

It is very important for families to have a debt management plan, especially when they first begin having children. They should make these arrangements early on, so that when the family is established with several children, there is already a budget in place that can fit the lifestyle the family wants to live.

Some third party organizations work with the debtor if he or she has gotten in too deep with the bills. Parents must discuss the problem with these advisors, and be informed about the various methods they can use to get out from under a heavy amount of bills. They may need to change the way they live to spend less extravagantly. These advisors will also go over a solid budget for that the family can use. They will suggest changes based on the amount of income the family has.

Sometimes the representatives of these organizations will contact creditors to see if there is any kind of payoff arrangement that can be made that might save the debtor some money. Companies tack on extra fees, interest and other penalty charges that they are often willing to remove from the amount owed, lowering the cost so the debtor has an easier time paying it. Sometimes the creditor will offer to reduce the payoff amount by up to seventy five percent, if the debtor agrees to make one large immediate payment.

These advisors will also guide the debtor so that they do not end up in a bad financial situation again by counseling them on how to spend their money, how to eliminate particular debts quickly and how to consolidate their bills into one large payment.

Every month, there are bills that must be paid to keep the family in the house with the heat or cooling working. These bills, like rent, electricity, and water, are essential bills that cannot be forgotten. They must be put in a monthly budget along with outstanding bills, such as credit cards and doctor bills.

The bills that must be paid every month are often forgotten when people are attempting to create a good budget. The food for the family, utilities like electricity and water and gasoline for vehicles should not be forgotten. Insurance must be kept up with for the car, house and health of the family. An arrangement for paying outstanding debts must be made that will take into account all necessary bills.

The basic reason for structuring a debt management plan for the family is so that there is no threat of homelessness, freezing in the winter or boiling in the summer. The family must have food on the table and clean clothes to wear. Without a solid arrangement, the family is at risk.

Are your debts spiralling out of control? You may need help for debt. Take control and take the first steps get out of debt today.