Exactly what type of delinquent accounts effect your actual credit score?

Credit card accounts, phone bills court fees, etc?

Exactly what type of delinquent accounts effect your actual credit score?

Any delinquent account will lower your credit score. Credit cards, installment accounts like vehicles or homes, gas cards. Normally cell phone companies do not report unless you get way behind and are sent to collections, same with utilities. Any public records like collections, judgments, bankruptcy%26#039;s or bad checks will lower your score.

Exactly what type of delinquent accounts effect your actual credit score?

All. Court fees usually qualify as judgements which are negative. Credit cards paid late and/or not paid at all as well as a balance above 40% of the available credit is negative. Phone bills and other utilities may be negative, it really depends if the company is reporting to your credit.

Exactly what type of delinquent accounts effect your actual credit score?

Any account that is reported on your credit report. This includes credit cards, loans, mortgages, and student loans. Any public judgments(getting sued in court) or collections accounts showing on your credit report will lower your score as well. Even if you pay a loan or credit card late, generally it does not get reported as a %26quot;delinquency%26quot; to the credit bureaus until you are 30+ days late. Most store cards wait longer to report delinquent accounts than bank credit cards(Visa, MasterCard, etc); sometimes they do not report latenesses until they are 90+ days late. Student loans used to only report if the loan was 90+ days late, but they%26#039;ve since changed it and now they report if it is 60+ days late.

Utility accounts, such as electric bills or cell phone bills, do NOT affect your credit if you pay late...unless you are so extremely late that it gets sent to a collections agency. Even then, usually the collections agency does not report the derogatory account status to the credit bureaus until 2-3 months after they%26#039;ve received the account. But when a collections account DOES reach your credit report, expect it to take a BIG hit.

Generally, small court fees such as parking tickets, traffic tickets, or probation fees do not affect your credit either. The only time that these would go on your credit report, is if they are SO overdue(like 6mos.+ late), that the local court sends it to a collections agency and then it becomes a collections account. But generally it takes a while for this to happen. You will most likely be issued a bench warrant for your arrest, due to nonpayment of court fees, before it gets sent to a collections agency.

So if you are worried about paying late, or do not have enough money to pay all your due bills at this time, I%26#039;d suggest that you pay your credit card minimum payment first. Second would be loans or department store cards. I would not worry about things like electric, cable, or gas. Nonpayment of a cell phone bill may result in a temporary shut-off of phone service, but it will not affect your credit unless it is a few months overdue, at which point the account will be terminated and sent to collections.