How’s your credit score? Almost certainly it’s nowhere near as good as you imagine.

Since the credit crunch started, everyone’s has been knocked down a level.

Those who once had excellent scores now get the products that people with just good ones now get, those with good scores get now get “ok to poor” products and if you’ve a poor score … forget it.

And with credit scores playing an ever bigger role in getting a mortgage, credit card, loan or even contract mobile phone, it’s never been more important to manage yours.

You need credit to build credit

Get a credit card, even at a hideous interest rate, and use it responsibly. Spend a little on it each month and always repay in full each month so you don’t pay any interest. This way, your file shows you can be trusted with any new lending.

A host of “bad credit scorer” cards have appeared. We could call them credit reject cards, if you like. They’ve been designed quite deliberately to manage the market for people who can’t get credit.

You shouldn’t use them for borrowing, their interest rates are abdominal. This is only a tactical move to improve your score.

Ensure you set up a direct debit to repay it in full each month or the interest will cost large.

Overall winner

Capital One Progress starts off giving a nasty APR of 34 per cent. However, make your payments on time and this rate drops by five per cent roughly every six months. After one-and-a-half years, you’ll pay 19.9 per cent APR.

Worse credit history

If you’ve had defaults, there are some cards to try such as Barclaycard’s Initial at 27.9 per cent APR, if you’ve had CCJs too, there’s Capital One’s Classic at 34.9 per cent or the Aqua Card at 35.9 per cent.

The last resort

The Cashplus Creditbuilder pre-paid card costs £5 and, as you can’t borrow on it, you just pre-load it to spend, there’s no credit check, so anybody can get it.

You can voluntarily opt to pay a fee of £4.95 a month on it credit-builder option. This is then structured so that technically they are lending you the money.

As long as you pay it every month for a year, the information will be passed to the credit refere nce agency Experian as if you had successfully borrowed.