Making late payments ruins credit scores faster than anything else. It takes years to build a good credit score, while it only takes one late payment to make the cardholder start all their hard work to rebuild it. As stated on myFICO, this means that a recent late payment could be more damaging to a person's FICO score than a series of late payments that occurred long ago. No matter how late a person may make payments, their credit score will continue to decline. Depending on how late they paid will depend on how much their score will drop. Written by Equifax experts, they say that in this case the late payment can appear on their credit report and be factored into their credit score. Late payments will be listed on the cardholder's credit report depending on how late they are: 30 days late, 60 days late, 90 days late, 120 days late, 150 days late, or charged off. Depending on how good that person's credit score is, the drop may not affect them. For those people who don't have the best scores, late payments will hurt them drastically. Closing a card account can also cause a drop in credit scores. The Experian team says that closing an account causes an increase in overall usage rate. As a result, consumer credit scores may decline. The usage rate is also called the balance-to-limit ratio, and the lower the usage rate, the better. Closing card accounts can affect your credit score just as much as going into debt can. Jason Steele says closing a credit card account and taking on more debt has the same negative impact on your credit