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The 5 biggest credit score myths that can hurt your finances
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We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover.
How We Make Money.
The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you.
Jeanine Skowronski is a credit card expert, analyst, and multimedia journalist with over 10 years of experience covering business and personal finance.
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Americans appear to have a handle on some credit scoring basics, according to a new Bankrate Money Pulse survey. But there are some more nuanced aspects of credit that still have many consumers confused.
It’s not necessarily their fault.
There is “a lot of opaqueness about how creditors look at the borrower’s profile and what is good and bad from a borrower’s standpoint,” says Joseph Toms , president of Freedom Financial Asset Management in San Mateo, California. To explain a lender’s point of view, he compares a person’s credit profile to a health physical.
A heavy cough, for instance, is an obvious sign of illness to anyone, but a doctor uses other subtle measures — such as temperature — to assess your overall health. Similarly, a missed payment clearly indicates you might not pay back a loan as agreed. But other subtle factors, such as the diversity of your credit profile, give prospective lenders a clearer picture of your financial stability.
To help you better understand the vital signs of your credit report, we debunk the most persistent credit score myths identified in our survey.
Jeanine Skowronski is a credit card expert, analyst, and multimedia journalist with over 10 years of experience covering business and personal finance.
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