UK Consumer Information

Throughout your financial life your credit score is a very important number, and is often the deciding factor on whether or not you are approved for a new credit card, loan, or mortgage.

Following on from our previous guides on how to improve and build a strong credit score, here’s a run down of 10 financial decisions you could make that would end up hurting your overall credit rating.

If you’re about to go through the process of repairing your credit rating then there are a few things you should bear in mind and perhaps avoid.

Here’s a run down of 7 credit repair mistakes that you’ll want to avoid making.

Having a poor or bad credit score can have a large impact on your financial future. Whether you’re applying for your first mortgage, or applying for finance on a new car, your credit score will ultimately play a huge factor in every financial application you make so it’s important you keep it in good order.

If you’re still not convinced that you need to maintain a healthy credit score, then here’s 5 solid reasons why you should.

Thanks to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and even MySpace, keeping in touch with friends and family online has never been easier.

But as the popularity of social networks continues to rise, such services are beginning to appeal to fraudsters looking for ways to steal peoples’ identities and information that’ll help them fraudulently apply for credit.

The chances are, unless you frequently check your credit report you won’t realise you’ve become a victim until you find yourself refused credit or have a purchase declined.

As a UK consumer you have the legal right to obtain a copy of your credit report from the 3 main credit reference agencies for a flat fee of £2.00.

According to Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 each of the main UK credit agencies (Experian, Equifax, and CallCredit) are obligated by law to send you a copy of your statutory credit report within 7 days of receiving both your request and your £2 payment.

There’s no question about it, ID fraud (or ID theft) is on the rise and has become one of the fastest growing crimes of our modern age.

So what can you do to make sure you don’t become an ID fraud statistic? Well luckily there’s a few ways you can help to protect yourself and your information.

Here’s a run down of 10 things you can do to help guard against ID fraud.

First of all don’t panic. The ability to receive credit of any type including loans, mortgages, credit cards or store cards has never been approved freely.

When applying for credit you have to prove to the lenders that you are in full control of your finances and have proven in the past that you can be relied upon to make the repayments on time and in full.

If you’re thinking of making an application for credit, or have just been refused credit, then try not to panic – there are steps you can take to overcome this issue.

First off all you’ll need to grab a copy of the credit report. Checking your credit report is probably the best place to start as your report will contain lists of your previous borrowings aswell as giving you an idea of how well you’ve been managing your repayments.