Billeo: Pay your utility bills online and build credit

Filed under: Finance, Internet, Web services

Billeo: Pay your utility bills online and build credit

by Brad Linder Mar 10th 2008

It can be hard to build your credit history if you don't have a mortgage, car loan, student loans, or credit card bills to pay off. But odds are you're making other payments on a regular basis, like your rent and utility bills. They just don't usually count as far as credit history goes.

PRBC is a service that helps make those other payments count. PRBC stands for Payment Reporting Builds Credit, and your PRBC info can become part of your FICO score. So all you have to do to build your credit history is keep paying your monthly bills on time. In order to participate, you need to either have your financial institutions send info to PRBC or pay a fee so that PRBC can verify transactions you enter on the web site.

But starting today, there's an easier way. You can sign up for PRBC through Billeo, and online bill paying service. Billeo is free, but users who opt into PRBC will be charged a one-time fee of $5. Once you're signed up, every time you pay a bill using Billeo's free web-based service the company will track your payments and send the information to PRBC/Fair Isaac.

Billeo doesn't store your sensitive financial data online. Instead it's encyrpted and saved on your computer, while PRBC as a "consumer reporting agency" is legally required to comply with federal and state privacy laws.

Tags: billeo, credit, credit-history, credit-report, fair-isaac, fico, prbc

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