@Anonymous wrote:Have a Gander Mountain store card that is only about a year old. Some luck, I know. Comenity hasn't cancelled it and has been updating the payment history every couple months on it, even though there is zero balance. Limit is only $300. Question is, is there any harm in just letting it sit until they cancel it, vs cancelling myself right now? Letting it age should strengthen my AAoA over time, right? I have about 5 or 6 other cards as well. Most are fairly new. Just not sure if it negatively impacts my score letting the lender cancel my card, even it's due to a retailer going bankrupt.
I have an account from Comenity, it was Venue. They went out of business in 2009, CL is $1650. I ordered 1 item and returned it. The account is still reporting as $0 balance and is included in my utilization as a dormant account. Doesnt cost me anything and it shows as an 8 yr old, 9 mos account. I actually forgot about until sometime this year. On another note, I have canceled accounts from Credit One, Cap One and Merrick this year. My AAoA is over 6 yrs, it wasn't affected by the cancellations at all.
Score: F8 EQ 609, EX 597, TU 614 (1/17) Current Score: F8 EQ 701, EX 714, TU 689 (12/18)
@Anonymous wrote:I understand that closed accounts still impact AAOA. If it didn't, I would have closed it already. But, and call me a stickler for the details, the extra six months makes more than zero impact. It may be a marginal impact, but not zero. If it costs me nothing to keep it open, I'm inclined to do that. It can only help, albeit barely.
No it doesn't. Well, technically in 10 years it will have that slight impact of whether it falls of your reports on 12/22/2027 or 06/22/2027. But up until that point, the opening date of the card is still the same, so whether you close it, they close it, or you leave it open, your AAoA won't be affected until that point 10 (or 10.5) years from now.
@Dalmus wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Yeah, the $300 is about 1% of my total credit line. Less, once my CSP reports. I wasn't worried about that. Primarily just whether or not the Gander card would eventually report as closed by creditor and if that would negatively impact anything. I know this card isn't helping that much, and I personally don't mind an unused card just floating on my report. But, I'm of the opinion that any help is positive. If it's cancelled at 18 months, that's better for my AAoA for the next ten years than if it were cancelled at 12 months, right? Marginally, I know, but better just the same?
A lot of people misunderstand how AAoA works. Generally speaking, the card does NOT need to be open and active to count towards your AAoA. So, the only time having that extra six months will have any effect on your AAoA will be in 10 years when the account ages off your report. 9 years from now, those 6 months will make 0 diference to your AAoA.
Of course, there are no guantees as to when a closed account will come off the report, but to remove it early I believe takes an active request by you or the issuer. The CRAs themselves won't just take it off early.
I have two or three Comenity store cards that I closed a year ago, and they are still on my report, helping my AAoA.
Equifax removed 4 or 5 of my closed accounts within a year of my closing them. I never requested that they be removed. One of the accounts was quite old, so Equifax's removing it impacted my average age of accounts by about 6 months on EQ.
@woodyman100 wrote:Account CAN report for UP TO ten years.
accounts staying for ten years is not hard and fast
Yup. I've got one that only reports on Experian still. It's going to be 10 years old in May 2018. The other two CRAs haven't reported that account 3-4 years - it dropped off.
