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Many people know that bad credit may affect their lives in many negative ways but a lot of the people that have bad credit are unaware that their credit rating is as bad as it is.  Personal credit status is not one of the things that people see on a frequent basis, so it is difficult for many people to determine whether or not they fall into the good, fair, or poor credit categories or whether they will need to enlist the services of a credit counselor in order to improve their credit profile.  There are several different ways that a person can use to determine their credit rating and where they fall on the credit worthiness scale.

Estimating A Credit Score

The first way to attempt to determine where a person falls on the credit rating scale is credit score estimation.  Using this method, the person takes the amount of debt that they are carrying and their financial actions over the last several years to determine whether their actions have led to their credit score increasing or decreasing.  People that have missed some payments and have used more than 70% of their available credit can expect their credit rating to decrease significantly and if they cannot find a solution on their own, their actions may result in the need for credit counseling.

Although this method of determining whether a person needs credit counseling is imprecise, it will give the person a reasonable estimate of what their credit rating may be.  As long as the person is honest about their actions over the past few years and accurately remembers how much of their available credit they are using, they may be able to correctly judge the credit worthiness level that they are currently at and whether they need credit counseling to improve their credit profile.  There are even some credit rating calculators available on the internet that will take this information and calculate what range your credit score is likely to fall into.

Obtaining A Credit History

Another method of determining whether a person needs credit counseling is to obtain the person’s actual credit history and score from a credit rating company.  This can be difficult because the person will need to find a reputable place to obtain the credit information from and will have to verify their identity to the company before their personal credit information can be released.  In some cases, it can take up to two weeks to obtain the information that the person is looking for because of the number of requests that these companies handle each day from businesses and individuals alike and if there is a problem with the information that is submitted, it can take even longer.

Once the credit report and score has been obtained from the company, the person will easily be able to see how their actions in the past have affected their credit history.  If there are a great deal of negative entries on their credit report, the person may want to enlist the help of a credit counselor to find ways to bring their credit score back up into an acceptable range as quickly as possible.