It seems unlikely that any Arizona resident would willingly do anything to kill their credit score. However, you may be unknowingly lowering your credit score by making one or more of these common mistakes.
1. Late Payments
Lenders will only view you as truly responsible if you’re meeting them on time. Not only can late payments hurt your credit score, but paying bills late can also be expensive if late fees are imposed.
2. Maxing Out Your Credit Cards
You may think that it doesn’t matter how much of your credit card spending limits you’re using as long as you’re making your payments on time. However, there’s something called your credit utilization rate (CUR) that is considered when your credit score is calculated. Your CUR refers to the percentage of your available credit that you’re using at a particular time. If your balances reflect a high percentage of CUR, it makes lenders think that you’re relying too much on credit.
3. Closing Longstanding Accounts
Your credit score is based on your credit history, after all, so it’s good to have a longer one as opposed to a shorter one. Older accounts that show positive activity are a benefit to your credit reports because it shows that your ability to manage credit goes way, way back. So don’t be so quick to eliminate credit card accounts just because you don’t use them very much.
4. Debt Collections
Letting an account go to debt collections will result in serious harm to your credit score. So if cash suddenly becomes extra tight, try to reach out to your creditors and let them know what’s going on. More often than not, they’ll be willing to work with you and possibly even make your payments more affordable until you’re in a better situation.
5. Credit Bureau Disputes
The credit bureaus may be powerful, but they’re not perfect. In fact, many consumer credit reports contain errors of some kind, and many of these inaccuracies are significant enough hurt credit scores. Therefore, disputing items on your credit reports can be a frustrating process if you’re not used to dealing with the credit bureaus.
Having a low credit score in Arizona can make it harder to get good interest rates on loans, prevent you from renting an apartment, and cause you to pay more for car insurance. Luckily, even bad credit can be fixed. At, Moshier Law, we analyze credit reports….
