Is it true that debt hurts your overall credit scores?
I know in order to get better credit scores you need some level of debt but if debt itself can make your scores worse, doesn't this defeat the purpose?
Yes, debts to impact your scores. It is a sad reality. You improve your scores by paying off your debts faster but if you pay them off too fast, you can face charges. You want to always pay more than the minimum but scale it out so you aren't paying it off too fast. Confusing, right?
I never understood this myself. Seems like a double-edged sword for sure. No matter what, you are screwed. You don't use credit, you get punished. You use credit and do it wrong, you get punished. I have even heard of people with "perfect scores" getting screwed over for the numbers being too good.
Yeah, the more debt you have the lower your scores will be and this is down to owing too many banks too much money really. You want some debt but not so much that it is impossible to make payments each month on your salary.
Unfortunately, yes. I know for a fact that this is true. It took me YEARS to get my scores back up because of debts here and there adding up. Even though I was paying them on time each month, my score still dropped.
Any kind of debt that is contracted to your name will hurt your score. This includes credit cards, bank debts, loan debt, and even medical debt in some cases.