CreditBrief covers subjects where inaccurate information causes measurable financial harm. These standards describe how we work. They are not aspirational — they are the rules our every article here is held to, and readers are welcome to hold us to them as well.

How articles are researched

Every article begins with a specific question a reader is actually asking. Before drafting, the writer establishes:

  1. What the reader is trying to decide or understand.
  2. What the mechanics actually are, verified against a primary source.
  3. Which parts of the answer are set by federal law or regulation, and which are ordinary industry practice that varies by institution.
  4. What the honest limitations of the answer are — including where it depends on the reader’s own circumstances.

That third point matters more than it sounds. A great deal of credit card content presents a common industry practice as though it were a rule. We distinguish between the two explicitly, because the difference determines whether a reader can rely on it.

How sources are selected

We use a source hierarchy, and we work down it rather than up:

  • Federal agencies and regulators. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the NCUA and the IRS. These are our first stop for anything set by law or regulation.
  • Official issuer and bank documentation. Cardholder agreements, disclosure tables and program terms, cited as the issuer’s own statement rather than as a general fact.
  • Credit bureaus and scoring model developers. For published information about how scores are constructed.
  • Primary statistical releases. Where we cite data, we cite the release rather than a news article about the release.

We do not cite other blogs, comparison sites or content marketing as sources of fact. Where a figure cannot be traced to a primary source, we do not publish the figure.

What we will not publish

  • Fabricated statistics, studies or survey results.
  • Invented APRs, fees, rewards rates, sign-up bonuses, approval requirements or issuer policies.
  • Specific credit score thresholds presented as though lenders published them. They do not.
  • Claims about a financial product that we cannot verify against the issuer’s own documentation.
  • Professional credentials — planner, accountant, attorney, banker — that are not actually held.
  • Fabricated reviews, testimonials, reader counts, awards or expert quotes.
  • Personalized financial, investment, tax or legal advice.

Why we do not publish ranked card lists

Card terms change constantly and without notice. A ranked list with specific rates and bonuses is accurate on the day it is published and progressively misleading afterward — to readers who arrive from a search engine months later and have no way to know the numbers have moved.

We publish the evaluation framework instead, so readers can assess any offer against their own spending using current terms from the issuer. Our methodology is published in full.

How financial information is reviewed

CreditBrief is written and published by one person, so there is no second reader to catch a mistake. Pretending otherwise would be the easiest thing on this page to lie about, so instead the check is a written one: before anything covering regulated subjects, consumer rights, or any figure that could cost a reader money is published, it is worked through against this list —

  • Every factual claim is traceable to a source we accept.
  • Rules set by law are described accurately, including their limits and exceptions.
  • Industry practice is not presented as regulation.
  • Nothing reads as personalized advice.
  • Uncertainty is stated rather than smoothed over.

Articles displaying a “last reviewed” date were re-checked against current sources on that date. A single-author site has an obvious weakness here, and the answer is not to claim a review process that does not exist: it is to cite sources on every article so you can verify a claim without trusting anyone, and to correct errors openly when you find one we missed. If you find one, tell us — corrections are logged on the corrections page.

How updates work

Financial information goes stale. We handle that in three ways:

  • Structural writing. We explain mechanics rather than reciting numbers, so an article stays correct when a specific offer changes.
  • Visible dates. Every article shows when it was published and when it was last updated. Time-sensitive pieces also show a last-reviewed date.
  • Scheduled review. Articles covering rules, rates and regulated processes are reviewed periodically and after any material change in the underlying rules.

A substantive update — one that changes the guidance — refreshes the updated date. Fixing a typo does not.

Corrections

When we get something wrong, we fix it and say so. Material corrections are noted on the article itself, describing what was wrong and when it was corrected. We do not quietly edit an error out of existence.

Our full corrections policy explains what counts as a correction and how to report one. Reports go to creditbrief@gmail.com and are prioritized above everything else in our inbox.

Advertising, affiliates and editorial separation

CreditBrief is supported by advertising. Three commitments govern how that works:

  • Separation. Advertisements are labelled “Advertisement” and visually distinct from editorial content. We do not publish advertorial, sponsored articles or paid placements presented as editorial.
  • No advertiser review. No advertiser, affiliate partner or issuer sees an article before publication or has any influence over its conclusions.
  • Disclosure. CreditBrief currently has no affiliate relationships with card issuers or financial institutions. If we enter into any, we will disclose it on every affected page before publishing, and update our disclosures page.

Compensation never determines whether a product is covered, how it is described, or where it appears.

Authorship

Every article names its author and states their editorial role. We describe what people do here — Editor, Staff Writer, Researcher — rather than attaching credentials nobody holds. Author profiles are on the authors page.

Use of artificial intelligence

Editorial judgment, source selection, fact verification and the final text are the responsibility of the named author and editor. We do not publish unreviewed machine-generated text, and we do not publish articles nobody has checked against primary sources. Any tool used in production is a drafting aid, not an author, and no article is published without a human being accountable for every claim in it.

Reader feedback

If you think something on this site is wrong, unclear or missing important context, tell us. Contact details for corrections and general feedback are on the contact page.