Closing 1 year old account

[marketman]

Hello,

I am looking for adivce, I embarced on my credit repair adventure a little over a year ago. In the process I opened a First Progress secured credit card with the minium limit of $300. I am now at the point where I am being charged an annual fee for the card. Would you recomend closing the card to avoid the the fee, or has any one had experiance getting this waived?

I currently have the following card:

first progress (secured) $300

cap one (secured) $550

Well Fargo (unsecured) $1000

Cap One (Authorized) $5000

BofA (Authorized) $5000

I don't want to loose an momentum with my credit score increase, I one year I jumped from:

TU 514 to 691

EX 525 to 676

EQ 543 to 629 (I have no service for Equifax)

Any advice or suggestions would be very appriciated. 

Thank you

Hector

[jamesdwi]

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@marketman wrote:

Hello,

I am looking for adivce, I embarced on my credit repair adventure a little over a year ago. In the process I opened a First Progress secured credit card with the minium limit of $300. I am now at the point where I am being charged an annual fee for the card. Would you recomend closing the card to avoid the the fee, or has any one had experiance getting this waived?

I currently have the following card:

first progress (secured) $300

cap one (secured) $550

Well Fargo (unsecured) $1000

Cap One (Authorized) $5000

BofA (Authorized) $5000

I don't want to loose an momentum with my credit score increase, I one year I jumped from:

TU 514 to 691

EX 525 to 676

EQ 543 to 629 (I have no service for Equifax)

Any advice or suggestions would be very appriciated. 

Thank you

Hector

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Call in and tell them you  are thinking about closing the card, see if they offer to waive the AF. If not close the card it will continue to report for the next 10 years. 

[taxi818]

It will stay on your report for 10 years. Does not mean it will report for 10 years. It will say closed. But no affect on AA of A 

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

Hector, you have good scores now (especially TU and Experian).  

I would apply for two or three cards from lenders that pull TU.  Why don't you apply for Barclay's Rewards or Barclay's Apple card?  You should do Barclay's first and see if it gets approved -- because they are inquiry sensitive.  So make your first TU inquiry with them.

Also you can apply for Walmart or CareCredit (Synchrony), or any of the other Synchrony cards.

Also, what about a Capital One Quicksilver One card?  They do pull all 3 reports, but I got my first unsecured card from them at it was for $3,000 for the Quicksilver One.  My FICO scores were around 600.

I would app for at least one new card to replace the one you are closing before you close the account.  Sometimes any little change will temporarily upset your credit scores, so you should take advantage of where you are at and expand your cards --- and then dump that overpriced piece of garbage credit card.

If you do app for some new cards, please post your results.  I would love to see them.  Good luck.

[Anonymous]

1. Use the momentum built by the First Progress (keep card for now)

2.  Apply for all the CC's you can get now

3.  Once you have credit cards you want, close First Progress

So apply for new CC's first, a few of them if you can.  Then close the First Progress if that $39 AF hurts you too much.  For me, I kept my secured junk around for 2 years before closing.  I probably kept the secured cards around for a bit longer than I "needed" them but that was the price to pay for rebuilding and it worked for me

First Progress is a rebuilder's card.  They know that and I doubt they will waive the AF

[Chris679]

OP go ahead and close the card rather than pay the fee. Like others said it will stay as a positive trade line on your report for at least 10 years. No idea why anyone is telling you to apply for new accounts since you did not indicate that you need or want a new account. Personally I like to open one new account each year to take advantage of into APR and signup bonuses but that's just me. If your current accounts are still new it might be s good idea to hold off for a bit on new accounts.

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

The reason I suggest you apply for 2 to 3 new cards is that you have two tiny limit secured cards and one small limit (1,000) unsecured from Wells, plus two A/U accounts.  If your posted TU score is a FICO (or if TU FICO is close what you show) you should be able to get like a $2,000-$3,000 Cap 1 card Quicksilver 1 card, likely a Barclay's Reward or Apple Financing visa card, and probably some others.

I would do this before the closed account reports as closed because sometimes unexpected and unpredictable things happen with FICO scores.  Sometimes they don't make sense.  So yes by all means close that crummy card, but make good use of your current good scores so you can dump those other secured cards soon and get out of toy limit hell.  

[marketman]

Thank you to everyone who replied, I will let you guys know what happens.