It’s Not Wise to Ignore Bad Credit

“Ignorance is bliss,” or so they say. That’s not necessarily the case when it comes to bad credit. Keeping your head in the sand while your credit crumbles around you, isn’t a wise thing to do.

While you’re ignoring your credit, the situation could be getting worse, especially if you’ve stopped paying your bills. As late payments pile up on your credit report, your credit score drops further and further. Just how low can your credit score go? All the way down to 300. It’s a long climb to better credit from there.

If you ignore your bad credit, you could unexpectedly have a job application turned down after you’ve gone through the entire job-hunting process. Employers do screen credit reports, but typically after they’ve done the interview and possibly even told you that you have the job pending a background check. If you’ve been in the dark about your credit situation, being turned down for a job would be a complete surprise. You have the right to a free credit report if you’re unemployed and planning to look for a job, so contact the credit bureaus to check your credit before you go job searching.

Bad credit doesn’t just affect people who are actively looking for a job. If you’re up for a promotion or raise, your employer could check your credit report before moving you up the ladder. Unfortunately, blemishes on your credit report could hold you back in your career.

If you ever have to rent an apartment, you’ll have a hard time getting approved when you have bad credit. Landlords are among the many businesses that check credit reports for approval. Serious delinquencies like charge-offs, debt collections, and evictions would get you turned down for an apartment. Just because you have a place to live right now doesn’t mean you’ll never have to rent again. Unexpected things happen and you could find yourself on the market for a new rental.

You’ll get denied for credit cards or loans when you need one the most. For example, what if you decided to go to college and you needed to take out a private student loan to help cover the expenses. These loans are typically credit-based. Without good credit of your own, you’d need a cosigner that does have good credit. If you have neither good credit nor a cosigner, your dream of going off to college will have to be postponed.

When you have past due accounts, your creditors or even debt collectors can sue you for what you owe. If you ignore the lawsuit summons and don’t file an answer or appear in court, the judge will often award a default judgment in the creditors favor. Then, if you continue to ignore the judgment, the creditor could go back to court to get permission to garnish your wages.

It’s never a good idea to ignore bad credit. The situation will often get much worse before it ever gets better. When you have a bad credit score, credit repair is the cure.

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