Always be wary of co-signing a loan, especially if you cannot guarantee that the person will be able to pay his or her payments on time. Continually Keep Your Accounts Active Most creditors and lending agencies would rather prefer to see a verifiable credit history on their clients. If you wish to pay all your outstanding balances, and close all your accounts, your creditors won t be able to determine if you re in good financial standing, or if you re paying your balances on time. It's a fact that some typing errors or numerical glitches often show up on some credit reports; therefoe you need to get a copy of your credit report at least once a year. Pay Your Obligations On Time Always make sure that you pay off all types of debt or bills on time. Late payments or any delinquencies will truly have a major effect on your credit score. Incurring High Credit Card Balances Whenever a person incurs high balances in their credit cards, their credit scores go down hard too. The classic case of over-utilization of credit cards happens when the individual runs out their balance, or goes over their credit limits, and only pays the minimum amount each month to avoid further financial problems. And while some credit monitoring agencies brag about their daily monitoring, the truth is that it s not as real-time as advertised, since many creditors often are late, or incur delays, when reporting new data to the credit bureaus. There are other alternatives to credit monitoring services though. The choices include identity-monitoring services, which cost less, and provide you with a fair amount of credit report monitoring for free. Other loans and forms of credit also hurt your credit history, and may have serious effects on your financial health. Aside from credit card payments, other loans or bills like unpaid apartment rentals and medical bills can also hurt your overall credit score. Here are five ways to hurt your credit score. Pay Your Bills On Time Each time you use your credit card for making various purchases, always remember to pay your bills in full each time they come due. Timely payments make for happy credit card owners, while late or missed credit card payments are an exercise in futility, and paves the way for your constant haranguing by collection agencies, and also cuts deep wounds in your credit score.