What is the Fastest Way to Raise Your Credit Score


When it comes to American credit bureaus, there are three major organizations worth talking about.  They are, in no particular order, Trans Union, Experian, and Equifax.  Each member of this holy trinity of debt has their own methods and equations used for a single purpose; identifying the likelihood that any given citizen of the United States of America will make good on their debts and bills.  These numbers are one of the most important series of digits in any adult's life, and they are also some of the easiest to mess up.  As such, many people who have made a mistake or two may be trying to look how to quickly and efficiently correct their credit score.

The truth of the matter is that there are no quick fixes in regards to your credit score.  If you've messed your score up, then you need to take the time to fix it.  This usually takes far more than six months, especially if you have more than a few late payments with bills.  The fortunate part is that there is nothing truly complicated to doing this.  You simply need to pay your bills on time, make no credit purchases that you can't pay off in under a month, and make sure you're smart with your existing lines of credit.

Be wary of any organization that promises a chance to significantly improve credit score in a seemingly short amount of time.  Most of these are either scams, or extremely risky processes.  In either case, you could end up making your credit rating far worse as a result.

Some people try to garner quick boosts to their credit scores by eliminating as many cards as they can, as quickly as they can.  This is actually a great way to hurt your score, which may seem counter intuitive at first.  One of the means by which your credit score is calculated is by seeing how much of your available credit is currently in use.  Say you have five cards, each with $1,000 dollars, giving you a total of $5000 dollars worth of credit available to you.  Let us also say one of these cards is maxed out.  In this case, you have used 20% of your available credit.  If you canceled three of these cards, the numbers change drastically.  Now you have half of your credit tied up, and you suddenly look like a much bigger risk than you did before.

There are a few ways that you can make small, quick improvements to your rating.  For starters, an aggressive pay off of standing debts tends to cause modest increases.  Also, regularly using credit in a controlled fashion is a timeless suggestion.  A common tip is to use one credit card for gas, and put aside the money for that gas and count it as spent.  This way, you're showing the bureaus that you know how to use a credit card without using it too much..

There is no way to fool the bureaus and make them believe you know how to use credit like a responsible adult.  The only way to make your credit score solid again is to, in fact, act like a responsible adult.
