Yahoo just had a good article today about ways to mess up your credit score that mentions some of the same point I made in a previous post. The article highlights 7 ways to hurt your credit score:

1. Close credit accounts – I mentioned this in a previous post. Closing credit cards can really hurt your credit score.

2. Let credit cards collect dust – Creditor will close your account if they see that it has been inactive for a very long time. This could reflect negatively on your credit report.

3. Run up high balances – This one is obvious. Don’t go maxing out your credit cards. You should only be using a portion of your available credit each month.

4. Apply for new credit repeatedly – You do not want to have too much revolving credit. This means, just have a few credit cards. Nothing excessive.

5. Don’t pay fines or bills – If you miss payments on any fines or bills this will obviously hurt your credit scores. If a company that is billing you needs to send your bill to a collections agency, you need to make sure to pay that bill right away or risk your credit score dropping.

6. Ignore mistakes on your credit report – If there is a mistake on your credit report, correct it immediately! You also want to check your credit report and credit score a couple times a year. This can really hurt you in the long run if you are trying to get a loan in the future and they see the error on your reports. You can claim it was a mistake, but if you don’t get it corrected, it won’t make a difference.

7. Make late payments or miss payments entirely – This one is obvious too. Late payments will kill your credit score. If you were a lender, you would want the person to whom you are lending money to have a good history of making payments.