What are some ways a person can raise their credit score?

Public Comments

1. pay you credit card on time and in full!
2. The only sure way to raise your score is to pay your payments on time. There are other methods to improve your score such as various debt ratios that the agencies use. However, let me ask this, why do you want a high credit score? I'm assuming that you are going to borrow money, but what for? Just curious.
3. Make all of your payments on time. Keep your revolving (credit card) debt to a minimum. Obtain a loan for a car or a home, your on time payments to this type of loan give you more points than a revolving account does. If you have any bad debt on your credit report, get it paid and cleaned up as quickly as possible.
4. get a credt card and only use it to pay bills that you have the money to pay already.
5. Have a few different tradelines, or credit lines. Like Visa, MC, AmEx and rotate usage. Never have the balances over half of the credit line. Make purchases, but pay them off as soon as possible. Don't spend money on credit cards unless you have the cash to pay it off. Always make your payments early and try not to pay the minimum.
6. Consolidate loans or other debt to make the payments less. This will help your score because your debt-to-income ratio will go down. But make sure to pay as much as you were or even more if you have the means. Lets say you have 3 loans/credit cards $5000 min pay $50 $10000 min pay $85 $3000 min pay $40 consolidate to: $18000 with min pay of $125 your payments will be $50 less a month and your debt to income ratio will fall a few points. These numbers are jsut made up for this example... I don't know what the actual numbers would be. Also make sure never to close or stop using your oldest credit card. Credit history is one of the components of a credit score. Read your card policy and find out how often you have to use it so it does not cancel. I have an old card from high school that I used once every 3 months or so just to keep it active. If i get rid of it, my score would go down a lot because my longest line of credit will be 3 years younger.
7. Get a loan and pay it off. BMZ.com works with Prosper on getting regular people loans.