There are a few things that people do without realizing it that have a bad effect on their credit score.  Follow these tips to avoid the common traps that can sink your credit risk rating:

Beware of debts and credit you don’t use.

It is easy today to apply for a store credit card that you forget all about in three years – but that account will remain on your credit report and affect your credit score as long as it is open.  Having credit lines and credit cards you don’t need makes you seem like a worse credit risk because you run the risk of “overextending” your credit. 

Also, having lots of accounts you don’t use increases the odds that you will forget about an old account and stop making payments on it – resulting in a lowered credit score.  Keep only your used accounts and make sure that all other accounts are closed.  Having fewer accounts will make it easier for you to keep track of your debts and will increase the chances of you having a good credit score.

However, realize that when you close an account, the record of the closed account remains on your credit report and can affect your credit score for a while.  In fact, closing unused credit accounts may actually cause your credit score to drop in the short term, as you will have higher credit balances spread out over a smaller overall credit account base. 

For example, if your unused accounts amounted to $2000 and you owe $1000 on accounts that you have now (let’s say on two credit cards that total $2000) you have gone from using one fourth of your credit ($1000 owed on a possible $4000 you could have borrowed) to using one half of your credit (you owe $1000 from a possible $2000).  This will actually cause your credit risk rating to drop.  In the long term, though, not having extra temptation to charge and not having credit you don’t need can work for you.

Be careful of inquiries on your credit report.

Every time that someone looks at your credit report, the inquiry is noted.  If you have lots of inquiries on your report, it may appear that you are shopping for several loans at once – or that you have been rejected by lenders.  Both make you appear a poor credit risk and may affect your credit score.  This means that you should be careful about who looks at your credit report. If you are shopping for a loan, shop around within a short period of time, since inquiries made within a few days of each other will generally be lumped together and counted as one inquiry. 

You can also cut down on the number of inquiries on your account by approaching lenders you have already researched and may be interest in doing business with – by researching first and approaching second you will likely have only a few lenders accessing your credit report at the same time, which can help save your credit score.

Be careful of online loan rate comparisons.

Online loan rate quotes are easy to get – type in some personal information and you can get a quote on your car loan, personal loan, student loan, or mortgage in seconds.  This is free and convenient, leading many people to compare several companies at once in order to make sure that they get the best deal possible. 

The problem is that since online quotes are a fairly recent phenomenon, credit bureaus count each such quote estimate as an “inquiry.”  This means that if you compare too many companies online by asking for quotes, your credit score will fall due to too many “inquiries.”

This does not mean that you shouldn’t seek online quotes for loans – not at all.  In fact, online loan quotes are a great resource that can help you get the very best rates on your next loan.  What this information does mean, however, is that you should research companies and narrow down possible lenders to just a few before making inquiries.  This will help ensure that the number of inquires on your credit report is small – and your credit rating will stay in good shape.

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Before you start boosting your credit score, you need to know the basics. You need to know what a credit score is, how it is developed, and why it is important to you in your everyday life.

Lenders certainly know what sort of information they can get from a credit score, but knowing this information yourself can help you better see how your everyday financial decisions impact the financial picture lenders get of you through your credit score. A few simple tips are all you need to know to understand the basic principles:

Understand where credit scores come from.

If you are going to improve your credit score, then logic has it that you must understand what your credit score is and how it works. Without this information, you won’t be able to very effectively improve your score because you won’t understand how the things you do in daily life affect your score.

If you don’t understand how your credit score works, you will also be at the mercy of any company that tries to tell you how you can improve your score – on their terms and at their price.

In general, your credit score is a number that lets lenders know how much of a credit risk you are. The credit score is a number, usually between 300 and 850, that lets lenders know how well you are paying off your debts and how much of a credit risk you are.

In general, the higher your credit score, the better credit risk you make and the more likely you are to be given credit at great rates. Scores in the low 600s and below will often give you trouble in finding credit, while scores of 720 and above will generally give you the best interest rates out there. However, credit scores are a lot like GPAs or SAT scores from college days – while they give others a quick snapshot of how you are doing, they are interpreted by people in different ways. Some lenders put more emphasis on credit scores than others.

Some lenders will work with you if you have credit scores in the 600s, while others offer their best rates only to those creditors with very high scores indeed. Some lenders will look at your entire credit report while others will accept or reject your loan application based solely on your credit score.

The credit score is based on your credit report, which contains a history of your past debts and repayments. Credit bureaus use computers and mathematical calculations to arrive at a credit score from the information contained in your credit report.

Each credit bureau uses different methods to do this (which is why you will have different scores with different companies) but most credit bureaus use the FICO system. FICO is an acronym for the credit score calculating software offered by Fair Isaac Corporation company. This is by far the most used software since the Fair Isaac Corporation developed the credit score model used by many in the financial industry and is still considered one of the leaders in the field.

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