The Worst Things You Can Do For Your Credit Score

We all know that not paying debts on time is a bit naughty, especially when it comes to your credit score. But interestingly, this is not even close to the worst thing that you can do to negatively impact your credit score.

In this article, we will look at the individual factors which can have the most serious and severe impact on your credit report. Avoiding these actions will surely help you to advance your credit score, so that it is better than many other consumers.

The Worst of the Worst

A delinquency is quite possibly the worst thing that you can do to affect your credit score. Being unable to pay an outstanding balance or unable meet the regular repayment schedule which has been agreed upon between you and the creditor will almost certainly impact your score negatively.

There are a number of reasons for this:

  • A delinquency is the final step in the loan recovery process.
  • They represent a complete and total inability to pay.
  • Other options, such as an edited repayment schedule, will already have been attempted.
  • It is a clear signal that you took on too much debt to start with.

Unfortunately, a delinquency is the end of the road when it comes to your relationship with a creditor. For this reason, it has the most severe impact on your credit score, because no further action will be taken to recover the outstanding amount.

Other Bad Things For Your Credit Score

Obviously, a delinquency is the worst thing that can happen for your credit score. Short of this, there are also a number of other financial behaviours that can result in a gradual decline of your credit score. They include:

  • High number of accounts which are overdue.
  • Applications for credit with outstanding debts currently unpaid.
  • Having too many bank accounts with different institutions.

Whilst the impact of these three behaviours will not be as severe as a delinquency, they are all still viable reasons why your credit score may be worse after a period than when it started. If you think that one of these three things is affecting you, take the appropriate steps to ensure that the above behaviours are fixed and corrected.

If you can get things back on the straight and narrow track, you should be able to prevent your credit score from sliding further.