Payment history
Whether you have paid past accounts on time. It carries more weight than anything else, and a single late payment reported at 30 days can affect a score.
How Credit Actually Works
A plain-language guide to the system almost nobody explains properly: what goes into a score, what is really on your report, which common beliefs are wrong, and what federal law entitles you to do about it — free.
Educational content · Not credit repair · Not financial advice
Part One
What Makes Up a Score
FICO publishes the weightings behind its scoring model. They are not evenly split, and knowing the order changes which habits are worth your attention.
Amounts owed
Mostly credit utilisation — how much of your available revolving credit you are using. It is calculated per card and across all cards.
Length of credit history
The age of your oldest account, your newest, and the average across all of them. This is why closing an old card can work against you.
New credit
How many accounts you have opened recently, and how many hard inquiries are on file. Several applications in a short window read as risk.
Credit mix
Whether you manage more than one type of credit — revolving accounts like cards alongside instalment loans like a car or mortgage.
Part Two
What Is On Your Report
A credit report is not a score. It is the underlying record the score is calculated from, and it is organised into four parts.
Identifying information
Name, current and former addresses, date of birth, and employment history. This section is not used to calculate a score.
Accounts (tradelines)
Every account a furnisher reports: type, open date, limit or original amount, balance, and payment history month by month.
Inquiries
A record of who accessed your file. Hard inquiries come from applications and are visible to lenders. Soft inquiries — including checking your own report — are not, and do not affect a score.
Public records and collections
Bankruptcies, and accounts sold or assigned to a collection agency. A collection can appear alongside the original account.
Part Three
Six Things People Get Wrong
Most credit advice passed around is either outdated or was never true. These are the ones that cost people the most.
MythChecking your own credit lowers your score.
It does not. Pulling your own report is a soft inquiry, and soft inquiries are not visible to lenders and are not factored into a score. Only a hard inquiry — one you trigger by applying for credit — can affect it.
MythYou need to carry a balance to build credit.
You do not. Paying a statement balance in full still reports the account as paid on time, which is what builds payment history. Carrying a balance only adds interest.
MythClosing an unused card helps your score.
It often does the opposite. Closing a card removes its limit from your available credit, which raises your utilisation, and over time it can reduce the average age of your accounts.
MythPaying off a collection removes it from your report.
Generally it does not. Payment usually changes the status to paid rather than deleting the entry, and accurate collection entries typically remain for around seven years from the original delinquency.
MythYou have one credit score.
You have many. Different models — FICO and VantageScore among them — produce different numbers, each bureau holds slightly different data, and lenders often use industry-specific versions.
MythYour income is part of your credit score.
It is not. Income does not appear on a credit report and is not a scoring factor, though a lender will usually ask for it separately when assessing an application.
Part Four
Your Rights Under Federal Law
The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you specific rights over your own file. All of these are free, and none of them require paying anyone.
A free report from each bureau
Federal law entitles you to free copies of your credit report from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The federally authorised source is annualcreditreport.com.
The right to dispute — yourself, free
If something on your report is inaccurate or incomplete, you can dispute it directly with the bureau at no cost. You do not need to pay anyone to do this for you.
An investigation
When you dispute an item, the bureau generally must investigate — usually within 30 days — and correct or delete information it cannot verify.
Old information falls off
Most negative entries drop off after about seven years. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is the common exception at ten. Accurate, current information is not required to be removed before then.
FAQ
Straight Answers
Is this credit repair?
No. This site provides educational content about how credit and lending work. Rush Wealth Solutions LLC does not perform credit repair services through this site, and nothing here disputes, removes, or alters anything on your credit report.
Can anyone remove accurate negative information?
No. Accurate, timely information generally cannot be removed from a credit report before it ages off on its own, regardless of who you hire. Anyone promising otherwise is describing something that is not how the system works. What you can do is dispute information that is genuinely inaccurate or incomplete — and you can do that yourself, free.
Do I need to pay someone to dispute something?
No. You have the right to dispute inaccurate information directly with the credit bureaus at no cost. Paid services exist, but nothing they can do is unavailable to you.
How long does it take to change a score?
There is no reliable answer, and anyone quoting a specific number of days or points is guessing. Scores respond to reported behaviour over time, and how quickly depends on what is on the file to begin with. Individual results vary and no specific outcome is guaranteed.
Is this financial advice?
No. The material is general financial literacy content, not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and it is not tailored to your circumstances. For advice specific to your situation, speak with a qualified professional.
Is Rush Wealth Solutions a lender?
No. Rush Wealth Solutions LLC is not a lender and does not make credit decisions.
Still have a question?
Use the chat in the corner of this page and we will answer it. There is nothing to fill in here and nothing to buy — the material above is free to read, and you can dispute anything inaccurate on your own report yourself, at no cost, by contacting the credit bureaus directly.