Your personal finances are really tied up with your credit score. Credit scores will determine whether youare approved for a loan, and if you are they will determine the interest rate youare charged on that loan. A good credit score will get you a nice home, and a poor credit score will get you rejected by banks time and time again. Notwithstanding, most people donat understand what a credit score is and where it comes from. Even fewer people know what impact credit scores truly have on their lives.

A smart individual works as hard as he can to ensure that heas got a good credit rating. But you may wonder, is my credit controlled by anyone other than me? Unfortunately, it can be. But donat worry, because there are steps you can take to erase othersa black marks from your credit score.

Out of all the information credit bureaus keep, they come up with a single three-digit number to represent your credit standing. This is known as a credit score. The FICO score is most commonly reported and used because it is the average of the score created for you by the tree major credit bureaus. Going to a site like myfico service will retrieve your FICO score for you.

Credit scores are continuously fluctuating to reflect changes in your account and credit activity. The total amount of debt that you have, the types of debts youave incurred, and your history of paying on time factors into your credit. The amount of time that you have had access to lines of credit also is considered by credit bureaus.

The most critical issue is your payment history, as it impacts your credit score the most. One of the ways in which other people can damage your credit is if a company wrongly reports that you are delinquent in making on-time payments. This is more common that you would believe, and it can be a real fight to fix the damage done.

There are many people who can talk about how one mistake in a company's accounting department gave them trouble for years, as they could not get the problem fixed with companies, debt collectors or credit bureaus. You do have the law on your side, though, so most of these issues are eventually resolved in the customer's favor.

Check your credit report. If your score is a lot lower than you expected, you should check if a credit bureau has incorrect information about your financial profile. Youall usually already know if they problem is misinformation about payments, but the incorrect information could be coming from other sources and causing your score to be low.

So to answer the question of whether others can negatively impact your credit score, the answer is mixed. They can by making a mistake, but if you are vigilant and take the time and effort to correct those mistakes you can get your credit back to its rightful place.