Should I close my First Equity credit card account?

[Anonymous]

First of all I am very grateful for finding this website. I have lurked here for a while trying to read as much as I can. The information that I have learned so far is very valuable thank you. Also, Thank you to the Mods and admin for making this a friendly forum for people like me still learning.

I have had my First equity card for a few years now and have become tired of it. They have started charging me like 29% on this card. I have a balance of 1300.00 on the card right now. I have not applied for a credit card in a while so I did some research here and ended up applying for the cap one plat card and was expected. I have not received the card yet so I have no idea what my credit limit is yet. I did transfer my First Equity balance to the cap one card. Should I close that card when the balance is paid off? At this point the card is costing more than I use it.

I have also suffered a set back. I had a medical bill that went to collections that was supposed to be paid by my lawyer but they took a long time to pay and the bill went into collections. The bill was paid but it was to late. I had a score of about 700 and it dropped to 639. I was still approved for the cap one card though which really surprised me. I have disputed the collection with eq tu it did not get reported to ex thank god. Another thing First Equity is not reporting to eq or tu is this normal? So closing the account doesn't seem to be a big deal in my eyes.

I only have one other credit card which is a amex green at 0 balance. I do have several store cards all paid on time each month and none maxed out. I think the thing that is helping me is that have no late or missed payments in the last 9 years.

Thank you so much for arming me with the knowledge I have received so far on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Hi 1dawg! Welcome aboard!

1. Hop on over to the Recovering From Medical Debt Forum to get guidance on the HIPAA process to get rid of that collection ASAP. 
2. Call CapitalOne and ask them what your new limit is.
3. Read the Closing Credit Cards thread, embdedded in the Helpful Threads stickied at the top of this forum.
   1. If the entire balance of the First Equity Card is transferred to Cap1, then the APR is irrelevant, unless you start carrying a balance on it again. Does it have monthly maintenace fees? Does it have an annual fee that you're no longer willing to pay? If neither of these situations are in play, I'd personally suggest that you SD the card, using it for a small purchase (coffee/tea, etc...) every other month, or put a small recurring charege on it that you can PIF every month just to keep it open, espeically if this is an old tradeline.

[Anonymous]

LiMirth,

I thought long and hard about this last night. I tend to agree with you. The account was opened in 2005 so it is starting to age nicely. The annual fee is $59.00 I believe. cap1 is going to transfer the total amount so the card should be at 0 in about 10 days or so. I think I will leave it open and move my netflix account over there so it can keep aging and have a small recurring balance that can be paid easily. Thank you very much for your advice.