What causes a credit score to go down?

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
"only a little late" is why your score only went down "only a little". Multiply the number of times you were a little late, by "only a little", and you can put a big ding in your score.

Completely false. The only kind of "late" that will hurt your score is 30 days or more. Anything less still registers as perfect credit.

You can pay everything you owe 25 days late and it won't affect your score one single point.
In fact, it won't even show up on your credit.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: DT4K
Not true at all.
Being a few days late will have NO effect on your score unless the creditor incorrectly reports the account as being 30 days late. If your creditors are reporting accurately, you could be 2 weeks late every single month and all it would hurt is your bank account balance due to late fees. Your credit report will still show those accounts as being in good standing with a status of "pays as agreed".

But all your interest rates can go up and you'll be in default if you do to any creditor. Still a very bad idea to be even 1 day late.

They can raise your interest rate for most anything, like lates or high balances.
You can pay a CC early every time, and if you run the balance up to near the limit, lots of companies will raise your interest rate.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: ChaoZ

Originally posted by: DT4K

Originally posted by: Aimster
getting loans and paying them off helps credit scores go up

as for down..

changing address
too many credit cards

Changing your address will NOT hurt your credit score.
Having too many credit cards is NOT a negative as far as your score. But having too many new accounts is a negative. So if you go out and get 5 new CC's tomorrow, it will hurt your score initially but it will rebound and after a while, it will end up higher than it was before you got those cards.

So would it be ok if I get a new credit card about every 3 months? I can't resist those $100+ credit offerings.

It really depends on a lot of factors. It's likely that getting a new card every 3 months won't have a major effect on your score. But each one will lower the average age of your accounts. I went from having 3 cards to having 10 cards in the past couple months. My Equifax score dropped a bit, but my other scores went up a bit (probably due to lowered utilization)

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
They can raise your interest rate for most anything, like lates or high balances.
You can pay a CC early every time, and if you run the balance up to near the limit, lots of companies will raise your interest rate.

Yeah, but lots of people don't realize this and don't read the fine print. Being a day late can cause you all sorts of headaches no matter what the impact to score is.

 

[Kappo]

Originally posted by: her209
I pay cash for everything I buy. Fvck the credit card companies.

You must not buy anything expensive. As a general rule of thumb, if I spend more than $500 on something or it even a little shady at all, I put on on CC then pay it off the next month.

If you buy a TV from Best Buy and it breaks in 10 days and they claim "water damage" and deny your return, dispute with CC and life is good. With cash, check, MO, or debit, you have NO recourse other than to say "ah well, Im screwed".

Rewards points and protection against a stupid company that rips me off FTW.

 

[Minerva]

Go here and buy one of them fancy blenders.

Take all your bills that come in the mailbox and blend them like this.

When the certified letters come blend them too!

This is guaranteed to make your score go into the ground.

 

[platinumike]

i got a question, i have a car loan with fidelity, its due on the 27th and then it says it is considerd late after like the 8th of the next month, and iam to addan extra 15 bucks to the check. Thing is i always get it in before the 8th of the next month, but i never get it in before the 27th. So in summary, they recieve it before the late fee date. Will this hurt my credit?

 

[QED]

Originally posted by: platinumike
i got a question, i have a car loan with fidelity, its due on the 27th and then it says it is considerd late after like the 8th of the next month, and iam to addan extra 15 bucks to the check. Thing is i always get it in before the 8th of the next month, but i never get it in before the 27th. So in summary, they recieve it before the late fee date. Will this hurt my credit?

No... but still not a good practice.

Some auto loan contracts can stipulate that they (the lender) can reposses or declare you in default if you are so much as a single day late. This isn't likely to happen in real life, but why risk it?

 

[bctbct]

Anyone who cares anything about their finances should spend at least one Saturday reading the threads over there.

The knowledge you can gain in 1 day could equal 1 year in OT. Those guys are sharp.

But never, never, never post before you SEARCH!

 

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: Kappo

Originally posted by: her209
I pay cash for everything I buy. Fvck the credit card companies.

You must not buy anything expensive. As a general rule of thumb, if I spend more than $500 on something or it even a little shady at all, I put on on CC then pay it off the next month.

If you buy a TV from Best Buy and it breaks in 10 days and they claim "water damage" and deny your return, dispute with CC and life is good. With cash, check, MO, or debit, you have NO recourse other than to say "ah well, Im screwed".

Rewards points and protection against a stupid company that rips me off FTW.

or you can buy from costco, pay less to begin with, and return it no-questions-asked for any reason.

 

[thomsbrain]

dang, you must have gotten seriously shafted on your car loan if you had zero credit history.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain

Originally posted by: Kappo

Originally posted by: her209
I pay cash for everything I buy. Fvck the credit card companies.

You must not buy anything expensive. As a general rule of thumb, if I spend more than $500 on something or it even a little shady at all, I put on on CC then pay it off the next month.

If you buy a TV from Best Buy and it breaks in 10 days and they claim "water damage" and deny your return, dispute with CC and life is good. With cash, check, MO, or debit, you have NO recourse other than to say "ah well, Im screwed".

Rewards points and protection against a stupid company that rips me off FTW.

or you can buy from costco, pay less to begin with, and return it no-questions-asked for any reason.

I don't think Costco is generally cheaper than BB or CC on electronics stuff....and they certainly don't have the selection.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: platinumike
i got a question, i have a car loan with fidelity, its due on the 27th and then it says it is considerd late after like the 8th of the next month, and iam to addan extra 15 bucks to the check. Thing is i always get it in before the 8th of the next month, but i never get it in before the 27th. So in summary, they recieve it before the late fee date. Will this hurt my credit?

No, it will not hurt your credit.
edit: Only being over 30 days late will hurt your credit. Anything less gets reported as paid on time.
Whether your loan company charges a late fee after it's 5 days overdue, or raises the interest rate is completely independent of your credit score.
Anyone who looks at your credit will see a perfect payment history....again, unless you had one over 30 days late.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
They can raise your interest rate for most anything, like lates or high balances.
You can pay a CC early every time, and if you run the balance up to near the limit, lots of companies will raise your interest rate.

Yeah, but lots of people don't realize this and don't read the fine print. Being a day late can cause you all sorts of headaches no matter what the impact to score is.

It'd have to be a cheesy company to raise an interest rate for just being a few days late.
I'm sure some of the secondary finance companies probably do on a regular basis, though.

I've never seen anyone's rate get raised for being a few days late, but I have seen several people have their interest rate climb out of sight when their balance got near the limit.
edit: My grandma has a Discover card, and she maxed it out when she moved, just for a couple of months until a CD came due and she paid it off. Now she's always, ALWAYS paid the balance in full every month for the life of this account.
Discover promptly rewarded her by raising her interest rate to 29%.

 

[James Bond]

Wow thanks for all of the responses. I'm going to definitely go to fatwallet and check out the finance forums... I didn't know they were such gurus over there.

All of the answers REALLY helped my questions, thanks again

 

[Aimster]

I thought if you moved a lot (new address) it would lower your credit score????

 

[shortspanishguy]

I think its funny how people assume having alot of accts will kill your score. I have about 15 CCs and my Fico is a 747.

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
It'd have to be a cheesy company to raise an interest rate for just being a few days late.
I'm sure some of the secondary finance companies probably do on a regular basis, though.

I've never seen anyone's rate get raised for being a few days late, but I have seen several people have their interest rate climb out of sight when their balance got near the limit.
edit: My grandma has a Discover card, and she maxed it out when she moved, just for a couple of months until a CD came due and she paid it off. Now she's always, ALWAYS paid the balance in full every month for the life of this account.
Discover promptly rewarded her by raising her interest rate to 29%.

Many people are getting ratejacked for even one day late, and I'm talking about top issuers. It's getting worse. Chase ratejacked a friend of mine for ONE day late. Oh, they waived the late FEE, but the rate went from 12.99% to 28% and they would not budge. Some places are raising rates if the customer is late on a DIFFERENT card (this is their "universal default" clause).

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: Aimster
I thought if you moved a lot (new address) it would lower your credit score????

You thought wrong.

But people have to remember that there is more to getting credit than just your score. If you are moving frequently or changing jobs frequently, lenders may be decide you are too big of a risk and turn you down, despite the fact that your credit score is high. The same goes for having lots of available credit. It's a common myth that having too much available credit is bad for your score. The fact is that if you make 30k a year and have 200k available on credit cards, it's NOT bad for your score. But it is possible that a lender might decide there's too much risk of you getting yourself in trouble and they may decide not to approve you.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: thomsbrainor you can buy from costco, pay less to begin with, and return it no-questions-asked for any reason.

Or you can buy from Costco AND use your Amex card to earn rewards that could be worth up to 5%. Best of both worlds.

Originally posted by: PacfanwebI don't think Costco is generally cheaper than BB or CC on electronics stuff....and they certainly don't have the selection.

No, they don't have the big selection. But I have found Costco to be cheaper for electronics. They certainly had better(or at least equal) prices when I was looking at HDTV's. The only reason I didn't buy my Sony LCD RP there is that I didn't have an Amex yet and I got 0% on my Circuit City card.

Back to the topic, I would certainly not recommend being late on bills. As others have said, there are consequences for being 1 day late on a credit card bill. If you can't pay everything, the utilities are probably the most lenient on late payments. They'll typically let you get a month behind without any adverse consequences.

 

[NanoStuff]

What causes a credit score to go down?

Women