Your credit health is one important factor that can affect your financial life. In fact, it can affect your life in multiple ways including the ability to access affordable personal loans, rent an apartment, or even get a job. Considering its potential impact on your life, it’s important to maintain good credit.
While it’s possible to improve your credit scores, it takes time, so you may be wondering if it’s possible to simply buy a better credit score.
Can You Buy A Better Credit Score In Canada?
Credit improvement takes time and effort, there is no easy shortcut or solution that you can buy to improve your credit overnight. Moreover, fraud and scams prey upon people’s vulnerability. Often, they pose as helpers like credit counsellors.
It’s important to note that if a company or someone posing as a credit counsellor says they can help fix your credit scores immediately or guarantees that you’ll have high credit scores after working with them, they are likely trying to scam you.
Some Things Cannot Be Bought
While most people believe that money can fix all problems, it’s not necessarily true. A low credit score is one of those issues that money can’t always fix. Your credit score is blind to appearances and is only affected by the credit decisions that you make.
Here’s why it’s difficult to buy a good credit score.
Credit Scores Remember…
Your credit scores remember most of the good and bad credit decisions and there is a record of them in your credit report. Different credit bureaus have slightly different ways of scoring your credit but no matter what, paying off your debt won’t remove it from your credit history. If your bad debt ends up being a collections account and you have debt collectors coming after you, your credit scores can reflect that issue for years.
Unfortunately, no amount of money thrown at the situation will be able to buy you a good credit score.
Credit Scores Don’t Care About Income…
Your credit score is not easily persuaded by high income, expensive homes, or fancy assets and equally, it doesn’t place judgment on low incomes and small homes.
There are millionaires who have bad credit scores and people with minimum wage jobs who have good credit scores. It’s all about the financial decisions that you make. If you don’t pay your debts off in time and irresponsibly use your credit cards, no matter what your income is, your credit scores will reflect those poor decisions.
Can A Credit Repair Firm Fix My Scores?
Credit repair firms do exist and they will work with you (for a fee) to help you repair your credit history in hopes that it will improve your credit scores. Credit repair firms help by looking over your credit report and double-checking all the items listed, they look for things that can be disputed and then removed in hopes that your credit score will then improve. They can also help with collection agencies by trying to negotiate the removal of the account from your report.
It’s important to note that credit repair firms are not miracle workers and that there is no guarantee that they’ll be able to help build your credit. Moreover, there is nothing that a credit repair company can do that you can’t do on your own.
If you are willing to learn about your credit and put in the effort needed to build your credit, then you can build your credit the same as a credit repair company.
How To Build Good Credit?
Understanding how your credit scores are calculated can help you build good credit. While there are many different credit scoring models, there are five factors that are commonly used:
- Payment History – Your payment history usually accounts for 35% of your credit scores. You can help build good credit by consistently making payments on time and in full. Avoid missing any payments (or making late payments) as that can negatively affect your credit scores.
- Debt-To-Credit Ratio – This ratio refers to the amount of revolving credit you’ve used versus how much you have available. Most lenders like to see a ratio of 30%, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a higher ratio.
- Credit History – Your credit history usually accounts for around 15% of your credit scores. The longer the age of your credit accounts, the better it usually is for your credit. It’s best to avoid closing old credit accounts and opening new accounts as they can reduce the average age of your credit accounts.
- Credit Inquiries – When you apply for a credit account, the lender will generally pull your credit to assess your creditworthiness. This is called a hard inquiry and it can negatively impact your credit. It’s recommended that you avoid applying for too many credit products, especially within a short time frame.
- Public Records – Your public records generally account for around 10% of your credit scores. This includes items such as bankruptcies, consumer proposals, debt management programs (DMPs), tax liens and accounts in collections.
Cost | Credit Score | Credit Report | ||
Free | Yes | Yes | Visit Site | |
Free | Yes | Yes | Visit Site | |
Free | Yes | Yes | - |
Alternatives To Buying A Good Credit Score
While you can’t buy a good credit score, there are certain financial habits and credit products you can use to help build good credit.
Secured Credit Card
If you have bad credit, a secured credit card is a good option to help you build a more positive payment history. Secured credit cards work just like a regular credit card, except it requires a security deposit which also acts as your credit limit. Moreover, they almost guarantee approval, you simply need to be able to provide the minimum security deposit.
Every payment will be reported to the credit bureau(s), this will help you build a positive payment history which, in turn, may help improve your credit scores.
Automate Payments
One of the biggest factors that can impact your credit scores is your payment history. Late and missed payments can negatively affect your credit scores. Automating your payments can help you avoid any late or missed payments, which can help you maintain good credit.
Fix Credit Report Mistakes
Incorrect personal information, incorrect payment statuses, and duplicate accounts are all common errors that can be found in your credit report. These mistakes can negatively affect the calculation of your credit scores.
To avoid the impact of these mistakes, simply request a copy of your credit report with both credit bureaus and review the information. If there are any errors, you can file a dispute online with the credit bureau.
Be An Authorized User On Someone Else’s Credit Card Account
You can build your credit by simply being an authorized user on someone else’s credit card account. As an authorized user, you will not be responsible for any of the credit card payments, but you’ll get to benefit from the payments made by the primary holder as the creditor will report the payments to the credit bureaus for both users. Do note, that not all creditors will report payments for both users, so you’ll need to verify that information.
FAQs On Buying Good Credit Scores
Can a credit repair company help build my credit score?
How can I boost my credit score immediately?
How often are credit scores updated?
Bottom Line
When applying for different credit products your credit scores can play a big role and therefore it’s understandable that some people are looking for ways to increase. Unfortunately, good credit scores cannot be bought and must be earned. Just remember, hard work, patience and smart spending are cornerstones of a high credit score.