If you’re a constant borrower, you know by now that credit rating or score, however you call it, is crucial. It’s one of the first aspects a lender takes a look at when you apply for a new loan. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not to check your credit regularly. You might tell yourself there’s no need for you to do so, but again, you’re wrong. It’s very important to do frequent check-ups of the score. Why? There are plenty of reasons and we’ll tackle them in the following.
Why Should I Check My Credit Regularly?
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To Keep Yourself Updated
You always need to know where your credit rating stands, no matter if it’s in a good or a bad place. This will allow you to take action should it drop for no apparent reason. If it’s optimal, you must ensure it’s going to stay that way by handling your money well.
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To Remove Potential Errors
To error is human. We all make mistakes. Even the employees of a bank or credit reporting bodies can screw it up from time to time. Your credit score might be dropped accidentally. Perhaps there are more borrowers with the same name or some negative information was written incorrectly in your credit file. In this case, you can act fast and prove that your financial behaviour was perfect, so the bank will correct those mistakes and your credit rating will return back to normal. Credit bureaus can sometimes mess things up without even knowing it. Always be one step ahead of them. It’s your financial future in question, anyway, not theirs.
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To Be Prepared for a Loan
It’s difficult to imagine that some people apply for loans without having checked their scores first, but it happens more often than you think. Of course, their applications are rejected. It’s also them who play the victim and are surprised they’ve been turned down. Always check your credit score before applying for a new loan. You’ll know if you are eligible for the money. If you keep an eye on the rating once every so often, you’ll eliminate the surprise-factor.
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To Understand What Hurts Your Score
Errors can make it plummet, but this doesn’t mean that things you do aren’t hurting it. Expensive purchases, missed payments, closing credit cards and borrowing money all over again – all these practices can have a negative impact on your credit score. When you know what you’re doing wrong, you also know how to correct the situation. Basically, you’ll learn from your mistakes and history won’t repeat itself. Mind that credit repair services are expensive.
You better stop taking all the bad decisions instead of paying money to a company that might or might not find a solution to your troubles.
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To Prevent Identity Theft
Identity theft is a huge problem in this day and age and pretty much everybody can be targeted. If someone uses your identity to do all sorts of shady financial things, the repercussions will go on your credit file. How do you know your identity has been stolen? Check your file and look for: purchases you’ve never made, transfers to and from individuals you don’t know and other similar actions.
If your credit score went down because of these, you’ll be able to deal with the credit bureau a lot easier and faster. Obviously, you will need to prove that you’ve been the victim of identity theft and you haven’t done all those things yourself.
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It Doesn’t Hurt
There’s this misconception going around according to which checking your credit file and score every so often damages it. That’s not true. And even if it were, you would have gotten an impulse to correct your behaviour. You must be updated with the position of your credit score at all times. In the long run, this will spare you from tons of problems that might arise when you talk to a lender for a new loan. The main reason why you should check your credit regularly is that you can. It’s a free service that can save you money and some broken nerves.
Concluding Remarks
A low credit score can make it impossible for you to take another loan, at least until you’ve done everything necessary to bring it back to the ideal form. However, isn’t it better to prevent it from going down in the first place? It is, obviously. It doesn’t take more than half an hour out of your time to make sure you’re on the safe side and you won’t have any difficulties in getting quick funding when you need it. We hope this brief article has been helpful and it cleared out some of the misconceptions you might have had regarding this practice. Check your credit frequently.
Contact the friendly staff at Clean Credit today to check your credit score and to dispute any errors you think shouldn’t be there.