Last Updated on August 17, 2024 by Nadeem Ahmed
Your credit score has a huge impact on many things such as your ability to buy or rent a new place or get loans on low-interest rates.
Lenders look at the credit scores and credit report of a person to figure whether they should lend them money or get into some deal with them or not.
So, you need to increase and maintain your credit score.
In this article, we are going to share with you a few common mistakes that can hurt your credit score.
- High Debt Utilization Ratio
The debt utilization ratio is one of the biggest factors that affect your credit score. If you have a debt to credit ratio of 50% or higher than that, it can potentially have a negative impact on your credit score.
If you have maxed out cards, credit lenders would feel hesitant to give you credit. You should aim to keep the ratio below 30% for preventing any kind of negative impact on your credit score.
- Late Payments
Making payments late is the fastest way to lower your credit score. The more time you take to make the pending payments, the worse the situation gets for you.
When the score reaches a dangerously low level, you might need to buy a tradeline to give your credit score a boost. You can check out the broker Coast Tradeline services or other seasoned tradelines purchase services by Coastline Tradelines to increase your credit score.
- Applying for More Credit
Whenever you ask for more credit while payments are pending for previous credits, then the lender performs a check on your credit history.
These inquiries make you look suspicious and can even be a cause to lower your credit score. You probably won’t get approved for the credit if you don’t have a good credit score. Even if you do, the inquires negatively affect your credit score.
- Co-Signing A Loan Application
If you co-sign for a loan, you are at the mercy of the other person with whom you have applied for the loan.
If the other person doesn’t keep their end of the contract and pay the payments for the loan, you’d be held responsible for their actions. And payment details are going to show up on your credit score as well.
So, make sure to think twice before co-signing a loan application.
- Keeping A Lot of Cards
Having a lot of credit cards makes their management quite difficult and overwhelming for you.
Having a few well-maintained cards is way better than getting a lot of cards that you just can’t handle.
People who have a lot of cards have to undergo a lot of inquiries which can have a bad impact on their credit score.
- Canceling Zero-Balance Credit Cards
Even if you don’t use a card anymore and you have completely paid it off, it is never a good idea to cancel it.
When you cancel the card, it decreases the total credit amount that shows up on your credit report. Plus, it can increase your credit utilization ratio as well.
Canceling zero-balance cards might shorten the age of your credit history which can contribute to lower credit scores.
- Ignoring Mistakes In Your Credit Report
You need to look at your credit report now and then to make sure that it doesn’t have mistakes in it. If you see something that could potentially hurt your credit score, you need to deal with it as soon as possible.
Mistakes in the credit report can have a huge impact on the credit score. So, you need to make sure that there aren’t any details in the report that you don’t recognize. If you find something like that, you need to get in touch with the concerned authorities and the mistakes fixed from your credit report.
End Notes
Now that you know the common mistakes that can hurt your credit score, you should try to avoid them as much as possible.
Keeping a clean credit report makes it easier for you to get accepted for loans and get insurance plans with better rates.
The bottom line is, you need to learn about what hurts your credit score and you should actively put effort into making sure that you don’t make those mistakes.
