Most people have heard about the alligators in New York's sewers and the little kid with cancer who wants a zillion postcards.

Unfortunately, those aren't the only myths floating around out there. For example, a lot of the things that people "know" about credit reports and FICO scores have about as much validity as those monstrous Manhattan alligators.

So here's a look at 11 common credit report myths and what the truth really is.

1. Paying my debts will make my credit report instantly pristine.
A credit report is a history of your payments, not just a snapshot of where you are at the moment, says Maxine Sweet, vice president of public affairs for Experian, one of the three major credit-reporting agencies. As the author of popular Web column Ask Max, she continuously reminds people that you can't change the past.

2. Credit counseling always destroys my credit score.
Attending a credit counselor's debt management program is not considered negative in the scoring models.

"We don't want consumers to consider credit counseling to be detrimental to their FICO scores," says Craig Watts, public affairs manager at Fair Isaac Corp., the company that developed the FICO score.

However, if the credit counselor negotiates a lesser contractual obligation, the lender decides how he wants to report that. So if your $500 monthly payment is refigured for $300, the creditor may either legally report that as $200 in arrears every month or reward you for not filing bankruptcy by reporting the account as up-to-date.

"As long as the accounts are delinquent and not brought up to date it will be viewed negatively by lenders." says Deborah McNaughton, owner of Professional Credit Counselors and author of the Get Out of Debt Kit. However, she continues, "if everything is current, whether it's a home loan or not, they're not going to view it as negative. The FICO scores are not affected by it." The credit score system ignores any reference to credit counseling that may be in your file.

Although credit counseling does not by itself influence your credit score, it is apparent on the report that you've been through, or are currently in, counseling -- and that is something individual lenders may not like. Or they might never know.

"If they looked manually at your credit report and saw that debts were being repaid through a debt management program, they probably wouldn't open a new account for you," Sweet says. Of course, "you shouldn't be opening a new account if you're in a debt management plan."

However, most lenders these days will never see your actual report.

"They don't look at reports manually anymore." Sweet says. "Some small creditors might, but, most of any size use automated scoring systems of one model or another."
Once you've successfully emerged from credit counseling with your formerly tattered credit pieced back together, the history of consistent payments is what matters the most. "Even mortgage lenders will work with consumers who have successfully gone through debt management counseling and will work to get them a mortgage," McNaughton says.