🧐😱10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT CAN AFFECT YOUR CREDIT SCORE 🧐😱

While you probably have a general idea of what your credit score means, some things that affect credit score may surprise you.

Reporting Errors

Errors can end up on your credit report and are items that are flat out inaccurate. According to an FTC Consumer Report, 1 in 5 Americans have errors on their credit report.

Parking Tickets

Leave a parking ticket unpaid long enough and the city will likely send it to collections. Because collections involve outstanding debts, they can appear on your credit reports and do big damage to your credit scores.

Utility Bills

Similarly, unpaid utility bills can affect your credit score numbers negatively, when the debt is sold to a third-party debt collector. The third-party collector can report the account to the credit bureaus.

Medical Bills

Medical debts can directly affect your credit if you’ve used a credit card to pay for them. Health care providers will send unpaid bills to collections after a certain period of time, usually between 90 and 180 days.

Delinquent Child Support

Unpaid child support is considered debt. And it can be reported to the credit bureaus by the municipality or agency responsible for collecting the payments.

Paying Off a Loan

If you pay off your auto loan and it’s the only installment loan you have on the books, your credit score can take a small hit. Sounds backward, but it’s how credit works.

Getting a new Cellphone Plan

Cellphone providers also often pull your credit when you sign up for a plan, which again can be a hard inquiry on your report.

That Old Gym Membership

An unpaid gym membership can wind up in collections, so it’s important to cancel one you’re no longer using. Don’t just close or cancel the card you were using to pay the membership. Cancel the membership itself.

Not Paying Your Taxes

Leave Uncle Sam’s annual bill unpaid long enough, and it might file a Notice of Federal Tax Lien against you. And a lien can seriously damage your score.

Applying for an Insurance Policy

Insurance companies might access your credit history before granting you a policy. That access is usually a hard inquiry. And while one hard inquiry won’t affect your score much, several can. So apply cautiously.