this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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Anon tries to understand credit scores (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 14 hours ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works
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[–] FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 20 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I think that's misleading - taking out loans and paying them back is the most well known way of raising a credit score. I don't see why the opposite would be true.

Supposedly some people actually do this, when they can afford to, because they see the boost to their credit score as worth the actual lost cash in interest. From what I gather, credit score helps you to attain more favourable mortgages or other loans, which helps when you make big purchases like cars or if you run a small business.

Example from my own life:

spoilerThe first time i took out a student loan [UK] I left the course after about 2 weeks and repaid it all back because Student Finance England - a private entity that supposedly operates on behalf of the government - was hassling me to return the money straight away. Ironically, i didn't need to do that, and there wasn't much benefit to doing so. But my credit score is abnormally high compared to other peoples' and i think that's why.

One arguably unjust part about credit scores is that the actions of people related to you, or simply sharing the same surname as you, can affect it! E.G i have heard that a friend-of-a-friend's dad took out too many loans and now their credit score suffers.

Seems like a medieval system to me. People joke that it's the capitalist approach to a "social credit score," and I have to agree.

Anyway if it's true that the actions of other people can affect your credit score, it seems like the number is nothing more than a "how much do bankers like you" score. I presume a bankers immediate family will have higher than normal credit scores. What OP/anon perceives as the score going down for contradictory reasons are actually just his score going haywire under a combination of factors outside of his control.

[–] damnedfurry@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

taking out loans and paying them back is the most well known way of raising a credit score.

This is so much the case that many financial institutions have "credit builder loans" which are essentially a loophole for building credit, where you're given a 'fake loan' that you repay, then you're given back your payments at the end of it. Meanwhile, the credit reporting agencies see that you took out a loan and faithfully repaid it, so your credit score goes up.

One arguably unjust part about credit scores is that the actions of people related to you, or simply sharing the same surname as you, can affect it! E.G i have heard that a friend-of-a-friend’s dad took out too many loans and now their credit score suffers.

It doesn't work that way, at all. Credit scores are individual. Either that person is mistaken, or they were a co-signer on one or more of those loans (which makes them matter to their score also).

Anyway if it’s true that the actions of other people can affect your credit score

It's not, they can't.

[–] FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

It doesn’t work that way, at all. Credit scores are individual. Either that person is mistaken, or they were a co-signer on one or more of those loans (which makes them matter to their score also).

Thanks for fact-checking me man, I did start to think I'd got the wrong end of the stick while writing it.