Many people don’t check their credit score on a regular basis because they don’t worry about it until they need to apply for a loan. Monitoring your credit score regularly is important to ensure that any issues that arise can be addressed right away. The sooner they’re addressed, the less of an impact they’ll have on your credit score.
Many people assume that only major debt or delinquencies affect their credit score, but that isn’t always the case. There are many things you may not realize can affect your credit score in very negative ways.
Delinquent Child Support Payments
If you’re behind in your child support payments, it can negatively affect your credit. When you’re court ordered to pay each month to support your children you are obligated to pay.
If you don’t, the system can report the amount that you owe to the credit bureau. There are some states who will not only report the delinquency but also garnish your paycheck or even send you to jail if you don’t pay the money you owe.
Parking Tickets
People often make the mistake of thinking that they can ignore their parking tickets and they will simply go away on their own. This isn’t the case. When you don’t pay your parking tickets, they accrue interest and become far more expensive than they would have been if you just paid them when they were due.
The city where the parking tickets were written can also hire debt collectors to get the money they’re owed. When this happens, the debt is shown on your credit report and can affect it negatively.
Some jurisdictions will impound your vehicle if you don’t pay your parking tickets, which can make the costs increase exponentially. If you think you have outstanding parking tickets, it’s best to call the local parking enforcement department to check and see.
Library Fees
Believe it or not, being delinquent on your library fees can be detrimental to your credit score. Libraries often have books stolen, lost, or returned days, weeks, or months later than they’re supposed to be returned. When this happens, the libraries assess fees on the tardiness. If they can’t collect the money after a certain period of time, they will send the debt to a debt collector. Once this step happens, the debt is reported on the person’s credit and can cause their credit score to drop.
Most libraries allow you to look online to find out if have any outstanding fees. Pay the fees as quickly as you can so that they don’t go into collections. If you can’t afford to fully pay them off, work out a payment plan to show that you’re making an effort, so the library doesn’t send your case to collections.
Ancient Gym Memberships
Just about everyone goes through a phase in life where they want to better themselves and get healthy. When this happens, they often sign up for a gym membership so that they can go to work out whenever they choose. The only problem is that many people lose motivation to work out and often end up stopping their regular visits to the gym.
When people stop going to work out regularly, they often forget that they have a monthly payment to make in the gym. When they stop paying for their membership, it can collect late fees and ultimately be sent to a collections department. The amount that is owed for the payments and any late fees will be shown as a delinquent debt on your credit score.
Gyms are businesses just like any other and only care that you signed a contract that you’re legally bound to uphold. If you don’t pay, you don’t get to use the facility and you could cause a lot of damage to your credit score at the same time.
Medical Bills
Going to the doctor without insurance can be very costly. If you are sick or injured and need medical attention, you have no choice but to go get the cash that you need. When you receive the medical bill, it’s best to try to work out a payment plan for the debt rather than just ignore it. Once it goes to debt collectors, they can charge extra fees for their services which can make the debt skyrocket in a very short period of time.
Cases of Fraud
There are times when errors are made on someone’s credit report. If you have accounts that are listed as being delinquent that you have never opened, you may have a case of fraud on your hands. You need to contact the companies that are claiming that you have delinquent accounts with them to find out when the accounts were opened, who opened them, and who has paid any money toward the bill.
If you find out that someone fraudulently opened accounts in your name, you need to go to the police and file a police report. It will take some work, but you should be able to have the fraudulent accounts removed from your credit history once you can show the debt collectors a copy of the police report.
If you’ve found that your credit score is much lower than you thought it would be, it’s important to get credit repair answers as soon as you can. You need to know what factors are making your score so poor and what steps you need to take to start rebuilding it as quickly as you can. It’ll take time to improve your credit, but taking the necessary steps right away is important.
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