There are several myths about what can hurt your credit score, which is a little annoying since there are a lot of things that actually can hurt your credit score that you need to keep in mind without getting confused. Unpaid collection accounts, past due accounts, and short credit history are some of the few of the things that you will want to dig deeper into so you can make sure you proceed with the proper knowledge because proceeding in the wrong way can potentially hurt your credit score.
But there are some things that people think will damage their credit score, but won’t, which should honestly be a huge relief. Here are three total myths people erroneously think will damage their credit score:
- Checking their credit report: Checking your credit report is a responsible thing to do and should be done often. It does not count against your credit points. If you’re doing soft credit checks, which are checks on your score through sites like CreditKarma or through a provided bank affiliate like CreditWise, then you’ll be fine. However, when this can hurt your credit score is when you do hard checks on your credit score multiple times within a year. Luckily these don’t happen often and need to be done by someone like a landlord when you’re applying to live in a new apartment.
- Being denied credit: If you’re denied credit, you will not have points taken off your score either. It just means that your score isn’t quite where you need it to be yet and that you have to work a little bit harder so that you can secure a higher score for yourself that will allow you to take out credit in the future.
- Interest rate on the loans: The amount of money you pay in interest does not hurt your credit score. However, if your interest rates are so high to where you can’t handle the payments, that will hurt your credit score because being unable to make loan payments that are higher than the minimum payment and by the requested date are things that will lower your credit score.
As long as you’re responsible and on time with your payments, you have no reason to worry about your credit score taking a hit for the reasons mentioned above. In fact, a lot of these things will help you grow in your finances and increase your credit score over time.
