1. Pay down debt
Credit agencies pay tremendous attention to your debt level. In order to improve your
credit scores, you must focus on paying off your debt, especially revolving accounts like
your credit cards.
Generally speaking, the credit-scoring bureaus like to see a big gap between
the amount of credit you're using and your available credit limits.
Bringing down your debt-to-credit ratio will give you an instant boost to your credit score.
2. Use your credit cards lightly
What's normally reported to the credit agencies is the balance reported on your latest statement.
Therefore, even though you pay your bill in full amount each month, racking up big balances can
reduce your credit score. Using your credit cards lightly (not exceeding 30% of your credit limit) can help.
3. Pay your bills on time
Delinquent payments and collections can have a major negative impact on your credit score.
4. Do not open too many new accounts - Use your old cards if possible
Don't open a number of new credit cards that you don't need, just to increase your available credit.
This approach could backfire and actually lower your credit score. The older your credit history, the better.
New accounts will lower your average account age, which will have a larger effect on your score if you don't
have a lot of other credit information.
As a result, we recommend you your oldest cards every few months to charge a small amount, paying it off in full when the statement arrives.
5. Dispute past negatives.
Assuming your electric company unfairly billed you and you refused to pay - this resulted a collection
in your account. You should continue protesting such old negatives. The older and the smaller a collection account, the more unlikely the collection agency will bother to validate it then the credit agencies
investigagtes your dispute. This may significantly improve your credit score if you successfully remove the old negavtives.
