by Katerina Nikolas

Created on: April 14, 2010

If you are really determined to sabotage your financial reputation then the easiest way to go about it is by damaging your credit score. It takes very little effort at all to hurt your credit score, and once you’ve done it then it will take you a long time to make it feel better again. Still no one really needs a good credit score if they don’t intend to have a mortgage, auto, insurance, bank loan or credit card in the future. Just be sure to keep well in with your employer and landlord or you may have difficulty finding a new job, or place to rent, without your pesky Fico score registering a decent number.

You’ll be pleased to know though that as long as you continue to earn on a monthly basis and keep your bank account open and free of unauthorized overdrafts, you will still be able to borrow money from advance pay day lenders, at exorbitant interest rates. Thus even without a good credit score you can still get by. That is until you come to your senses and realise that like it or not your credit score is part of your identity now and it isn’t terribly smart of you to do anything at all to hurt it.

Nevertheless if you are certain you want to join the growing numbers with bad credit scores here are just a few of the things you should do.

1. Apply for lots of credit in a short space of time. You can spread your applications between credit cards, store cards and bank cards. This is a sure fire way to hurt your credit score as it makes you look desperate.

2. Spend, spend, spend to the limit, on the credit cards you already have. This will worry the credit card company terribly as you near your credit limits, as good financial practice is to always spend no more than a minimum 30% of available credit.

3. Don’t make your credit card payments on time. This will actually please the card company no end as they will be able to legitimately charge you for your late payment, as well as charging you interest.

4. Even better don’t make the payment at all and go into default. All of the above consequences will apply but you may even get your very own debt collectors too.

5. Be a kind, naive and generous person and co-sign a loan for an irresponsible person. When they disappear in the middle of the night leaving their loan unpaid their debt becomes yours, messing up your credit score without you doing a thing.

6. You could be really drastic and make yourself bankrupt and that will just about finish your credit score off.

You can see from these handy tips that if you really do want to hurt your credit score it is incredibly easy to do. If you’ve changed your mind then do the reverse. However if you do follow these tips at least it should keep you out of credit card debt in the future, as no lender will want to offer you credit again in the foreseeable future.

Learn more about this author, Katerina Nikolas.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.