How To Improve Your Credit Score And Avoid Mistakes

DENVER (CBS4) - CBS4's Gloria Neal has been looking into how you can improve your credit score and avoid mistakes during Consumer Protection Week.

There are more mistakes on credit reports than you may think. It's estimated that 80 percent of credit reports have at least one mistake on them.

Here are some tips to improve your credit score:

- Reduce the amount of debt you owe. Use your credit report to make a list of all of your accounts and determine how much you owe on each account and what interest rate they are charging you.
- Keep balances low on credit cards and other "revolving credit" high, outstanding debt can affect a credit score.
- Don't lower those balances by spreading your debt around. The most effective way to improve your credit score in this area is by paying down your credit card debt.

For tips on how to find mistakes:

- When a credit report contains errors, it is often because the report is incomplete, or contains information about someone else.
- The person applied for credit under a different name. For example, Robert Jones is Bob Jones.
- Someone made a clerical error when entering your name or address or your Social Security number is wrong.
- Your loan or credit card payments were applied to the wrong account.

Finally, you can't fix it unless you know it's broken. Look at your credit report at least once a year. If you do find a mistake on your credit report, contact the Credit Reporting Agency, as well as the credit card company.