Improve your Credit Score with these quick tips and tricks

Even if you are not in the car business buy and selling with auction access, you still are very aware of the importance of having good credit. The biggest trick you can do is to pay your bills on time and make an extra payment once a month on your larger balances (towards principal).

1. Knock the errors off your credit reports

According to the Federal Trade Commission, about 5% of consumers have errors on their credit reports bad enough to result in a higher price for a financial product or insurance. You can get a free report every 12 months from each of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Using AnnualCreditReport.com, request those reports and check them for mistakes, such as payments marked late when you paid on time or negative information that’s too old to be listed.

2. Stay well under your credit limit

Your credit utilization — that is, how much of your credit limit you use — has a big impact on your score.

Bruce McClary, spokesman for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, says it’s best to keep balances to 30% of your credit limits or less. Both overall and per-card utilization counts.

3. Deal with past-due bills, get on top of payments

No strategy to bump up your score will work unless you’re also paying on time. Why? >>>Payment history has the single biggest influence on credit scores<<<

If you’re behind on any accounts, call the creditor. Arrange to pay up and ask if it will rescind the reported delinquencies so they no longer appear on your reports.

source ~https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/raise-credit-score-fast/

7 steps to raise your credit score

1. Watch those credit card balances. One major factor in your credit score is how much revolving credit you have versus how much you’re actually using. The smaller that percentage is, the better it is for your credit rating.
2. Eliminate credit card balances. “A good way to improve your credit score is to eliminate nuisance balances,” says John Ulzheimer, a nationally recognized credit expert formerly of FICO and Equifax. Those are the small balances you have on a number of credit cards.
3. Leave old debt on your report. Negative items are bad for your credit score, and most of them will disappear from your report after seven years. However, “arguing to get old accounts off your credit report just because they’re paid is a bad idea,” Ulzheimer says.
4. Use your calendar. If you’re shopping for a home, car or student loan, it pays to do your rate shopping within a short time period. Every time you apply for credit, it can cause a small dip in your credit score that lasts a year. That’s because if someone is making multiple applications for credit, it usually means he or she wants to use more credit.
5. Pay bills on time. One of the biggest ingredients in a good credit score is simply month after month of plain-vanilla, on-time payments.
6. Don’t hint at risk. Sometimes, one of the best ways to improve your credit score is to not do something that could sink it.
7. Don’t obsess.  You should be laser-focused on your credit score when you know you’ll soon need credit. In the interim, pay your bills and use credit responsibly. Your score will reflect these smart spending behaviors. But don’t obsess.

source ~www.bankrate.com/finance/debt/7-simple-ways-improve-credit-score-1.aspx

3 ”Secret” ways to increase your credit score

1. Find out when your issuer reports payment history

Call your issuer and ask when your balance gets reported to the credit bureaus. That day is often the closing date (or the last day of the billing cycle) on your account. Note that this is different from the “due date” on your statement.

Now, there’s this thing called a “credit utilization ratio.” This is the amount of credit you’ve used compared to the amount of credit you have available. You have a ratio for your overall credit card use as well as for each credit card.

2. Pay twice a month

Let’s say you’ve had a rough couple of months with your finances. Maybe you needed to rebuild your deck (raising my hand) or get a new fridge. If you put big items on a credit card to get the rewards, it can temporarily throw your utilization ratio (and your credit score) out of whack. Start paying twice a month. Send in your regular payments, then if you can, send in secondary payments (can be small $20) to be applied against your larger bills.

3. Raise your credit limits

Now, if you tend to have problems with overspending, don’t try this. The goal is to raise your credit limit on one or more cards so that your utilization ratio goes down. But again, this only works out in your favor if you don’t feel compelled to use the newly available credit.

I also don’t recommend trying this if you have missed payments with the issuer or have a downward-trending score. The issuer could see your request for a credit limit as a sign that you’re about to have a financial crisis and need the extra credit. I’ve actually seen this result in a decrease in credit limits. So be sure your situation looks stable before you ask for an increase.

source ~http://clark.com/credit/5-sneaky-ways-to-increase-your-credit-score/