How To Fix Your Bad Credit Score

Bad Credit? BlG Problem: Don't Be Fooled Bad credit scores typically happen over a period of time; however, you can get a bad credit score seemingly overnight and, in some cases, it may not be your fault. Increasing Credit Scores: How to Repair Your Damaged Credit Things You Should Know... EXCELLENT GOOD AVERAGE V POOR Repeatedly requesting credit hurts your credit score. Pay all credit cards and other bills on time every month. Begin paying down high credit card balances. Exhaust all other avenues before filing for bankruptcy protection or losing homes to foreclosure. You can and should challenge false reports. Declining Credit Scores: How a Bad Credit Score Happens You can get a free credit report once a year. The total credit you have is less important than total available credit. Sources: CreditLoan.com, myFICO.com Debit cards will not repair your credit. BANK 25% More than 25 percent of Americans have credit scores below 600, a threshold commonly referred to as “very bad" or “very poor" credit. How? 9100 JO $100 How do You Stack Up? Overuse of credit: The higher the balance on your credit card relative to your spending limit, the lower your credit score will be. Past Payment Performance Less than 20% have ever had a loan or account closed by the lender due to default. Late payments: A single late payment (30 days past due) can reduce your credit score by as much as 110 points. 1) 20% 0123456789 Debt management methods: Debt settlement, short sales, deeds in lieu of foreclosure, or debt settlement will each reduce your credit score by a range of 85 to 160 points. Filing for bankruptcy will cause a drop in credit score of 130 to 245. 50% 2) 30% Less than 50% of all Only 30% have ever been 60 or more days overdue on any credit obligation, and only 23% have gone 90+ days overdue. consumers have ever been reported as 30 or more Action by the credit card issuer: Many consumers have seen their credit scores fall as banks days late on a payment. 14 cut spending limits on their accounts. 13 Length of Credit History The average consumer's oldest obligation is 14 years old. 25% 4 of consumers had credit histories of 20 Number of Credit Obligations On average, today's consumer has a total of 13 credit obligations on record at a credit bureau. years or longer. Credit Utilization Only 5% of consumers had credit histories shorter than 2 years. 5% About 40% of credit card holders carry a balance of less than $1,000. 0123456789 56789 Fewer than 6% had About 15% have total card balances in four or more inquiries excess of $10,000. $19,000 When we look at the total of all credit obligations combined (except mortgage loans), 48% of consumers carry less than $5,000 of debt. 6% Total Available Credit Credit Inquiries The typical consumer has access to approximately $19,000 on all credit cards combined. Any time one applies i requests a copy of the credit report, this request is noted as an “inquiry" in the applicant's credit file. The average consumer has had only one inquiry on his or her accounts within the past year. and a len More than 50% of all people with credit cards are using less than 30% of their total credit card limit. Nearly 37% carry more than $10,000 of non- mortgage-related debt as reported to the credit bureaus. Just about 15% are using 80% or more of their credit card limit. ШИ Infographic design: www.borisbenko.com less than $1,000 excess of $10,000 15% %0% ess than $5,000 of debt more than $10,000 of non-mortgage-related debt 48% 37%