The credit score you get isn’t always the same score a lender looks at when deciding whether to give you a mortgage, credit card or auto loan.

This has become less “strange” in recent years, but closing your credit cards can hurt your score.

So, you want to improve your poor credit — everyday, thousands of Americans with poor credit are looking for the newest and slickest ways to improve their credit rating. Some settle for the unethical, some even are okay with the illegal. Which ever way you choose, the Internet seems to have answers for anyone.

Credit monitoring services will watch over your credit file with continuous around the clock tracking and notify you whenever there is a change to the credit file. These services will alert you within 24 hours of a change, usually through email, phone, or text message as you see fit.

Just because you settled with a car loan company after a car repossession, that doesn’t mean that they have to remove it from your Equifax, Experian or TransUnion reports.