A bad credit score can be a real liability in the modern world. Having such a bad credit score (from using a">credit card),  for instance, means that very few credit lines will be open to you. After all, the credit score is measures of a person’s creditworthiness, and a poor credit score therefore means that you are not in the least bit creditworthy. And even the few credit lines open to people with ‘bad credit’ will tend to charge you very exorbitant rates, knowing that you have to take them and pay their high rates, as you have very few options. It is not unheard of people with poor credit scores being charged double the interest rates their ‘colleagues’ with better credit scores are charged, for the same loan amounts.

      Yet many people mess their credit scores without even knowing that they are doing that. Indeed, for many people, their first credit score report comes as a great surprise, when they see just how lowly they are scoring, in spite of what they consider fairly prudent ways in their ‘debt-life.’

      One way that people mess their credit scores without knowing it is by being late and unreliable in their repayment of their utility bills. Unknown to them is the fact that how timely their utility bill payment is counts considerably in the calculation of their credit score. The utility bills in question here include things like the electricity bills, water bills and telephone bills, to name but a few. And it is in fact through this element of credit score calculation that a person who has never taken a loan (as we know it) can request for their first credit score report – expecting it to be glittering – only to find it a complete mess and in dire need of repair.

      Another way in which people mess their credit scores unknowingly is by being inconsistent – but still reasonably faithful – in their loan repayment. This is where a person borrows a loan of so many dollars, repays them on schedule, but ends up taking longer than was accepted as the loan repayment period, causing a dark mark on their credit records.

      Avoiding credit completely is another way you can mess your credit score unknowingly. Granted, this wouldn’t do much damage to your credit score – but since the credit bureaus have no way of knowing how you handle credit, they end up denying you the marks that you could have earned by taking up a small credit line and repaying it faithfully. So here, you end up erring by omission, rather than by commission.

     If your credit is bad, you can always apply for a bad credit credit card to help you pay your bills