Your Habits Are Giving You Bad Credit
Since you never deliberately did anything to damage your credit scores you may think that your credit and credit rating is okay. And since you think you have good credit scores you don’t need credit repair help. You may be surprised. There may be things that you are doing unintentionally which do affect your credit scores.
Your personal habits, as innocent as they may be, could be having a negative affect on your credit scores. Let’s review some financial habits that may be damaging your credit without you even knowing it.
How You Are Giving Yourself Bad Credit:
Over Use of Your Credit Cards:
- By over using your credit cards, you send a bad signal to creditors.
- Consistently maxing out your credit card limit is considered “over use”.
- Creditors see you as a risky customer when you use your credit cards too much.
- Creditors label you as living beyond your means.
- When you max out your credit cards you increase your chances of exceeding your card limits.
- Exceeding the card limit tells creditors that your spending is out of control.
- Creditors view maxing out your credit cards and exceeding the limits as a negative so your credit scores drop.
- A credit score below 750 is considered by creditors to be bad credit.
- The 3 national credit reporting agencies have 750 benchmarked as a good credit score.
So two financial habits that seem so innocent, maxing out and exceeding credit card limits, are actually damaging your credit scores.
Having Too Many Credit Cards:
- Limit the number of outstanding credit cards that you have.
- Creditors think of you as a bad risk when you have too many credit cards.
- You appear to be spread too thin when you have too many active credit cards.
- Someone with too many active credit cards makes creditors nervous because they can’t determine what you will do; you are like a moving target.
- Creditors aren’t sure if you will start to max out or exceed your limits.
- They aren’t sure if you will start to make late payments or not make your payments at all.
- Creditors evaluate you on the actions that they can monitor, and the number of outstanding credit cards is one of those actions.
Having too many credit cards is an example of a simple habit not appearing to be a problem; but that simple habit can negatively affect your credit scores. You give yourself bad credit by having too many active credit cards.
Carrying A lot of Debt:
- To a creditor debt includes more than just credit card debt.
- Debt to a creditor also includes auto and student loans, mortgage balances and any other balances that you owe other creditors.
- When you have a lot of debt, creditors think that you are more likely to pay late or not make payments at all.
- When you carry a lot of debt, your credit score drops.
- A credit score below 750 is considered a bad credit score.
- Creditors label individuals with a credit score below 750 as risky customers.
How To Fix Your Bad Credit:
Fixing bad credit starts with your credit score:
- Check your credit scores at least once a year.
- You can order a free credit report from each of the 3 national credit reporting agencies once a year.
- Check the credit report for errors.
- Report any errors to the 3 national credit reporting agencies immediately.
- It’s best to notify all 3 credit reporting agencies in writing.
- The credit reporting agencies have 30 days to reply to your dispute.
- Keep in mind that these credit reporting agencies just report the information that they receive, they do not verify it; it is your responsibility to verify the information.
Do not assume that your credit is in good standing and that you do not need credit repair help. Your financial habits could be negatively affecting your credit scores even though you may not think so.
We have shown you how to correct bad credit. Make some corrective actions to help yourself clean up your credit. If you need additional credit repair help you can contact one of the credit repair services.
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