Everyone who has any form of finance has a credit file. Your credit file is a detailed listing of all your current and past credit you have or have had, going back over a certain period. Items can fall off your credit file at different time limits, but not all items.

When you apply for credit a lender will search your credit file to see your credit history. This means that you cannot hide any credit problems, arrears, bankruptcy and any other credit problems from new prospective lenders.

If you do have a bad credit history or poor credit do not despair. You still have a good chance of being accepted, the lenders on this site do consider bad credit applicants.

If you have applied for a bad credit car loan and have being declined, there may be some things you can do. You should take time to get a copy of your credit report.

US Residents can Get a FREE copy of your Credit report online here.

On your credit report there should be details of all your recent and active credit history. You should analyse this with your own records to ensure everything is correct and up to date.

Large companies can make mistakes and if they aren't checked they may not be found, so you should ensure they are. There are a number of things that may be amiss on your file, these range from wrong credit amounts to items that should not be there.

Rebuilding your Score.

Once you have checked that everything is OK with your credit score you should analyse your income and your outgoings. You could take a look at implementing these steps.

• Consolidating different high interest loans into a lower rate loan.
• Ensure you pay all your household bills and credit charges ontime, everytime.
• Set yourself a budget and stick to it.
• Setup a high interest savings account to put any spare money into when it does come in.

These steps are a sound basis for a road to good credit. If you can't get credit at all you could look at starting out again with a credit builder credit card which should be easier to get and offer a low credit limit whilst giving you a credit line that, if you manage well, will give you a good item on your file.