What hurts your credit score

The biggest things that hurt your credit score are late or missed payments, high credit-card balances relative to your limits, collections and charge-offs, too many recent applications, and inaccurate negative items left unchallenged on your reports.

The heavy hitters

• Late and missed payments, the single biggest factor.
• High utilization, using too much of your available credit.
• Collections, charge-offs, repossessions and bankruptcies.
• Frequent hard inquiries from many applications.
• Closing old accounts, which shortens your history.

The one most people miss

Inaccurate items. Studies have found as many as 1 in 4 reports contains an error that could lower a score. Left unchallenged, it just keeps hurting you.

What to do about it

Fix the habits, and challenge what should not be there. A free analysis will show you exactly which items are dragging you down.