SmartMoney has a feature this week about Susan Blue Hitt, an Austin-based math nerd who loves football, flies planes, and is The Consumer Data Industry Association estimates that 50-70,000 people have frozen their credit reports so far. Here's our post on Finding your credit score can be hard if you've never done it before. There's scam sites, conflicting information, and the credit bureaus offering their own version of the credit score. But if you want your FICO, the real score looked at by lenders to determine your credit-worthiness and interest rates, here's where you can go:

Equifax sells a score for $7.95 when bought in combo with your free credit report from You can still raise your credit score by getting added as an "authorized user" on the credit card account of someone with better credit. Industry plans close the loophole starting this September are still yet to be implemented. The change was to be part of the update to "FICO '08," a revised version of the credit scoring system sold by the Fair Issac Corporation and in use at the three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. So-called credit piggybacking is used by parents to help their kids get on the fast-track to better credit ratings. It has also used by fraudsters to qualify for mortgages they wouldn't otherwise get - a contributing factor to the delinquencies in the subprime meltdown.

Reprieve for the 'Piggybackers': Still No Credit-Score Crackdown [Washington Post]
PREVIOUSLY: FICO Removing "Authorized Users" From Calculations; Credit Piggybackers Scores Dropping
(Photo: Schnittke)