According to a survey conducted earlier this year by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and the company formally known as Washington Mutual Bank (WAMU), there are still a record number of Americans that don’t understand exactly what credit scores are designed to do or the major factors that are used to determine this all so important 3-digit number.

In fact, 74% of consumers still believe that their credit scores are influenced by income! Even more surprising was that many consumers also believe that marital status, age, level of education and race, are also significant contributing factors to credit scores.

Here are some of the credit scoring myths that are still prevalent:

Myth 1: The more money you make, the higher your score will be.

No, no, no…this is flat out wrong. The only information used to determine your credit score is the information or data that is reported in your credit reports. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everything in your credit report is used in the score calculation – it has to be legal and it must be valuable in order for it to be used as a determining factor.

Your level of education, marital status, and race are also not in your credit reports. This means that while some would argue that some of these factors should have an impact on your scores, the fact remains that if it’s not in your credit report, it’s not going to have an impact on your credit scores.

Myth 2: Closing old, unused credit cards will help improve your credit scores.

No sir. In fact, this one can sink your credit scores. Closing old, unused credit cards can actually have a negative impact on your credit scores. This is because a large portion of your credit score is determined by your revolving utilization or proportion of balances to your credit limits on your credit card accounts. When you close a credit card account, you take the available credit limit on that card completely out of the revolving utilization calculation. This can cause an immediate increase in your utilization percentage and lower your scores. And since this is such an important category the damage to the scores can be off the charts.

Statistics show that consumers who have a great deal of unused available credit are actually less risky than consumers that don’t. A little piece of advice for you: If a lender advises you to close credit card accounts, don’t do it. Search for another lender.

Myth 3: Paying off a collection account will automatically remove it from your credit reports and increase your credit scores.

Paying off a collection account will not cause the item to be removed from your credit reports. All the payment will do is update the balance to show that the account has been paid off or paid down.

The derogatory record will remain on your credit report because for 7 years from the date it was assigned. What surprises most people is paying off a negative account really doesn’t help to improve your scores. It’s the fact that the collection occurred in the first place that matters.

So what’s the purpose of paying off a collection account if it won’t help your scores and it won’t be removed from your credit reports? It’s simple: If you don’t, you stand the chance of the collection being sold to another collection agency which can spiral into one collection turning into numerous collections, which all show up on your credit reports.

The collection agency can also hire an attorney to sue you and possibly garnish your wages. And if they’re able to obtain a judgment against you, well I don’t think I need to remind you that a judgment will blemish your credit reports for another 7 years.