The major credit reporting bureaus might report slightly different scores, but all three use a three-digit number to summarize the state of your credit. A credit score is a number that summarizes the historical credit information on a credit report. The number reflects the likelihood that you will become delinquent on a loan or a credit obligation in the future.

Paying bills on time is generally the single most important contributor to a good credit score. Being late on any bill, for any length of time, is a possible indication of future nonpayment of debt and is almost always viewed negatively by lenders. Any late payments will remain on your credit report for up to seven years.

The answer is "no." Most Americans have many generic scores reflecting the use of the scoring system and the source of the credit report—Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion. One of the most common myths about credit scores is that there is only one credit score. Web sites or financial advisers who claim there is only one "real" credit score either are misinformed or are being misleading. In fact, there are many different credit scores used by lenders (according to some estimates, more than 1,000), although some scores are used more than others. While there are many credit scores on the market, VantageScore® is the first credit score developed jointly by Experian and the other national credit reporting companies, TransUnion and Equifax.

In addition to using your credit score to help decide whether it's a good idea to give you money, lenders use the score to determine your rate. In general, the better the score, the lower the rate – and the lower your payments.

The answer is the "three main credit bureaus," which collect information on the credit use of more than 200 million Americans and make it available in credit reports. FICO and VantageScore have developed the most popular scoring systems for using credit reports to compute credit scores.

Banks, credit card companies, auto dealers, retail stores and other lenders decide if you get your loan. Most businesses that issue credit or loans use credit scores to quickly summarize a consumer's credit history, saving the need to manually review an applicant's credit report and providing a better, faster decision. Although many additional factors are used in determining whether or not you receive the credit you applied for — such as an applicant's income versus the size of the loan — a credit score is a leading indicator of one's basic creditworthiness. Credit reporting agencies do not make lending decisions.

The correct answer is "very important." Lenders may have provided inaccurate information, or failed to add accurate information, about your payment history to your credit reports. And, since many consumers have similar names, even accurate information may have been added to the wrong file. Fortunately, a federal law requires the three main credit bureaus—Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion—to provide on request a free copy of your credit report once a year. An easy way to get these reports is to visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call 877-322-8228.

The correct answer is "all of the above," though it takes much longer to raise a low score than lower a high one. For example, someone with a good score may lose 100 points if they miss payments on two credit cards. But they may gain only 50 of these points back by making all mortgage, car, and credit card payments on time for six months.

You may be tempted to close old accounts you're not using, but that won't help your credit scores and may actually hurt them. It reduces the amount of your available credit, which can lead to lower scores.

The answer is "risk of not repaying a loan." The other factors may influence this risk, but it is the risk itself that a credit score tries to measure.

Negative items generally affect your score for up to seven years, but, as time goes by, their impact lessens. If you pay your bills, keep account balances low and don't open a lot of new accounts, your score can rebound surprisingly quickly.

Paying bills on time is generally the single most important contributor to a good credit score. Being late on any bill, for any length of time, is a possible indication of future nonpayment of debt and is almost always viewed negatively by lenders. Any late payments will remain on your credit report for up to seven years.

Your FICO score consists of 35% Payment History, 30% Amounts Owed, 15% Length of Credit History, 10% New Credit, 10% Types of Credit used. Credit scores use information from three key areas of your credit report: account information (such as credit cards, auto loans, student loans, mortgages and rent), public records (such as tax liens or bankruptcies) and inquiries (requests by lenders to view your credit). Information such as race, gender, where you live and marital status are not used in credit scores.

Opening an account to get freebies such as filling out a credit card application just to get a free t-shirt, goofy hat, or official university credit card isn't worth the risk. Most students don't realize that applying for multiple credit cards in a short period of time may cause the credit bureaus to regard this as very risky behavior, which in turn drives their credit scores down.

Marital status is not one of the factors used to calculate a credit score. If you hold a joint credit account, have cosigned a loan or have authorized use of another person's credit, these items could affect a score if they appear on your credit report. It's important that joint account holders or authorized users understand that their credit behavior does affect the other joint account holder or main account holder.

Cell phone companies may use credit scores to decide whether you can buy a service or if a deposit will be required.

Mortgage lenders use credit scores to help them decide if you can get credit and what interest rate you'll pay.

Landlords use credit scores to decide whether you can rent a property and/or what price you'll pay.

Electric utilities may use credit scores as they evaluate whether or not to require a deposit.

As long as you don't borrow more money, the higher limit improves your credit utilization ratio, which is the percentage of your available credit that you've used. Lenders like you to use only a small percentage of your available credit so you don't appear to be maxing out your cards. Charging $3,000 when you have a $10,000 limit, for example, looks a lot better than charging $3,000 when your limit is only $5,000.

Both you and your spouse have individual FICO scores. When you apply for credit stating your joint income, lenders will usually look at both of your FICO scores when evaluating your loan application. For example if your FICO scores are 750, 730, 700, your middle score is 730. If your spouse has FICO scores of 640, 600, 650, your spouse's middle score is 640. The lender will then take the lower of the two middle scores. So in this example your score is 640 which may lead to higher rates.