Credit Score Tales Of Hits 'N' Misses

Maintaining a good credit score is important. Here are eight tales of credit scores, late payments, and a near-perfect 894 as we observed the Credit Score Awareness Week

- ADHIL SHETTY

An article about credit score? What interesting stories can we have on this? In fact, why should anyone even care? It's not like it's a measure of something critical, like your blood pressure or net worth. Well, credit scores do impact our daily lives, and we've got some answers. In June 2023, during the Credit Score Awareness Week, many people shared their credit score stories with us, some of which have interesting learnings for consumers. Here are a few of those.

Don't Be Late

How bad can one late credit card payment get? It happens to most people, and it turns out that one missed payment can be very bad.

Syed, a digital marketer, rarely took his credit card out of his wallet. He preferred his debit card. One day, Syed was at the local Crossword. They couldn't process his debit card, and out came the credit card.

It was a small payment of ₹250 he made for a book. But when the credit card due date arrived, Syed was abroad. He couldn't access his bank due to info-security restrictions and missed the due date. He returned to India and immediately paid the bill with penalty and interest. The book now cost him ₹550. Worse, Syed's credit score that was 844 before this event, fell to 776 in the first month and then to 727 in the second month. His score had gone from 'excellent' to merely 'good. A few months of disciplined credit card use and score-tracking later, Syed was over 800 again. It's been six years since the incident. Syed has never been late on his credit card payment since then.

The Cost Of A Bad Score