The loan officer said: 'Sorry, we cannot grant the loan. Your FICO score is just too low.' FICO? What is that? How can I fix it? Fixing your FICO credit report is easier than you imagine, once you know what you need to fix.

The truth is that you can manipulate your FICO score and repair your credit nearly to what it was before you get any more bad news from a loan company. It will take some time and a little work on your part, but it is definitely doable.

Loan companies and other creditors depend on your FICO credit score as their benchmark for lending. The three digit FICO number is how they determine if they will give you credit, the interest rate they must levy to be safe, and how much money potential lenders think you will be able to pay back on time.

The rule of thumb they use is: The national average score is 723. The higher your score is above that, the more financially sound you are. The lower your FICO score is below 750, the tougher it is for lenders to justify you as a good credit risk. And, they have no choice in the matter because FICO is the industry standard.

Your FICO credit number says a lot about who you are as a credit risk so you want your FICO score to be as high as it can be. Let me reassure you - It does not matter how bad your FICO score is now, there are ways that you can raise your FICO credit score! Ours is over 800. We got there in a step-by-step fashion by doing the right things.

The FICO score is nothing more than your credit history distilled into a single number based on past credit history. While there are guesses as to how Fair, Isaac & Co. (FICO) and the three major credit bureaus compute the score, they do not reveal their calculations. To be perfectly honest, even if they told us, we would need a very expensive computer program to compute it ourselves.

What we do know is FICO is calculated based on a borrower's credit history after considering numerous factors such as:

... Whether you pay your bills on time

... How long you have had credit (longer the better)

... How much you have borrowed compared to how much you had the ability to borrow

... How long you have lived at your current residence

... If you are a renter or buying a home

... The bad stuff such as: Bankruptcy, write-offs, collection actions, and other such actions

You might be surprised to know that there are really three FICO scores, one each from the major credit bureaus - Experian, Trans Union and Equifax. All lenders use either one of these three scores, or an average of the scores when determining your credit worthiness.

The reason this system is used and has been approved by the federal government is, the FICO score has proven to be an accurate and surprisingly consistent way of showing a our credit worthiness. It has saved companies millions of dollars in credit charge-offs by preventing lending decisions based on human judgment instead of cold mathematics. Over the years, lenders who have used FICO scores to grant or reject loans have been right over 80 percent in those decisions. So you can readily see why the FICO system is here to stay and why you should learn more about it.

Unfortunately, determining the FICO score that a lender might have used when you were rejected for credit can be a challenge. First, your FICO credit score is not shown anywhere on your credit report like you might expect. In fact, for many years, FICO credit scores were a well kept secret. Legislation now requires that anyone can get their FICO score. Secondly, there is still the problem of the three bureaus each issuing their own calculation of FICO scores based on their own versions of your credit history.

You can see why it's vital that you get credit reports and FICO scores from all three bureaus as soon as possible and start to work on raising your FICO credit score.