Improve Credit Score – Proven Strategies That Will Improve Your Credit Score
If you’re paying enormous interest rates on your credit cards or car loans, or have experienced being turned down by a prospective employer or landlord after they checked on your credit report, you most likely have a bad credit score. A credit score is a number between 300 and 850 that is used to measure your capability to repay your loans. The higher your score, the better your reputation is as a borrower. On the other hand, a low score tells potential lenders that lending to you entails higher risks of not getting their money back. To offset this risk, they will increase the interest rates on the loan you get from them.
Fortunately, there are some legitimate steps that you can take to proactively increase your credit score. One thing you can do is to get a copy of your consolidated credit report. This report shows all of your credit information as recorded by the three major consumer reporting companies: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Do verify if all the reported information are accurate. If there are inaccuracies such as loans which were mistakenly credited to you, dispute the information by writing to the consumer reporting companies.
Credit information are only kept for a maximum of seven years, so all information, negative and positive alike that are older than seven years should no longer be showing on your credit report. The consumer reporting companies usually have these old information deleted automatically. Still, it is a good thing to double check that only credit information less than seven years are on your record.
Another thing you could do for yourself to improve your credit score is to get yourself a secured credit card. A secured credit card is a type of credit card wherein the credit limit given to the card holder is the same amount as the savings deposit being kept as security for the card. You don’t run any risk of being denied this type of credit card as this does not pose any risk to the issuing financial institution. By using this type of card and by making sure you are making timely payments, you would gain positive feedbacks from the financial institution that issued the card, which would enable you to gradually improve your credit reputation and your credit score.
