Making late payments ruins credit scores faster than anything. It takes years to build a good credit score, while all it takes is one late payment for the cardholder to start all their hard work rebuilding it again. As noted on myFICO, this means that a recent late payment could be more detrimental to a person's FICO score than a number of late payments that occurred a long time ago. No matter how late a person makes their payments, their credit score will continue to decline. Depending on how late they paid will depend on how much their score drops. Written by the experts at Equifax, they say that in this case, the late payment may show up on their credit report and factor into their credit score. Late payments will be listed on the cardholder's credit report based on how late they are: 30 days late, 60 days late, 90 days late, 120 days late, 150 days late or charged. Depending on the quality of that person's credit score, the drop may not affect them. For people who don't have the best scores, these late payments will hurt them significantly. Closing a card account can also lead to lower credit scores. The Experian team claims that closing an account leads to an increase in overall usage rate. As a result, consumer credit scores may decrease. A utilization rate is also called a balance-to-limit ratio, and the lower the utilization rate, the better. Closing card accounts can affect your credit score just as much as taking on debt. Jason Steele says closing a credit card account and taking on more debt have the same negative impact on credit.