How to Destroy Your Credit in 5 Easy Lessons

Everyone knows a bad credit rating leads to higher interest rates, and being denied loans. Your FICO score has a possible rating of between 300 and 850. But do you know how to get your credit rating to drop?

1.       Don’t Pay Your Bills on Time: Easiest way of hurting your credit is to not pay anything on time. Payment history makes up roughly 35% of your credit score, so this really is the best way to hurt your credit. The first time you miss a payment by 30 days or more, your score will drop at least 100 points.

2.       Keep High Balances on Your Cards: Another good way to hurt yourself is to max out all of your credit cards. Having a lot of credit to use is not nearly as bad as having it all used. If you increase your balances so that they are more than 35% of your credit lines your score will plummet faster than you can count the numbers.

3.       Close Your Accounts: Take all of your older cards, the ones you have a real credit history on, and close them all. That way you can remove any history of good credit.  Part of your credit score is based on how long you have had the credit, and how good you have been at paying it. So if you get rid of the evidence, your score will drop.

4.       Lots of Store Cards: Every time you open a credit card it hurts your score. So when you are standing in the checkout at Sears, or anywhere else and see the application to get a card and get a discount, go ahead and open the account and watch your score drop because they really don’t like to see a lot of cards open on your account either. And if you really want to hurt yourself, open a whole bunch of them within a short period of time – they LOVE that!

5.       Don’t Pay Your Fines: So you got a parking ticket? Or you didn’t return the library book? Well, municipalities are now turning over these items to credit collection agencies, which will put a lovely black mark on your credit. It will easily drop your credit rating by another 100 points.

Keep up the good work – you keep messing with your credit and you’ll be down in the 300 range before you know it!  ■