Closing store credit cards?

Anonymous · ‎03-03-2016

Hello everyone. I am new to this so Ill try to explain my situation. Hope you all can understand. Thank you in advance. So I have maybe around 15 credit cards. 2 years ago I went on this rampage of applying to almost everything. So ofcoarse not knowing it would impact my score. Now that I am more aware I try no to get any inquiries. Well last week my husband was trying to get a loan with both our names. It turns out he only qualify by hismelf. Not with me. And BAM...another inquiry on me. He apaligized but I said to forget about it. They told him the reason I didnt qualify was beacuse I have to much open credit. Is there such a thing? Anyways, I started thinking the reason my score doesnt go up was because I too many. So I wanted to close some store credit that i feel I wont use. And just keep the major ones. Here is what I have.....

ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH- AU 750.00 closed today

VICTORIA SECRET- PRIMARY 750.00 Still Active Current Balance 0

Macys- Primary 600.00 Current Balance 296.62

Walmart- Primary 800.00 Current Balance 0

Target-AU 600.00 Current balance 497.86

Sears- Primary 800.00 Current Balance 0

Sears Mastercard Primary 2000.00 Current Balance 1646.72

Discover Card 4500.00 Current Balance 0

Capital One Mastercard 2300.00 Current Balance 0

Capital One Visa Primary 750.00 Current Balance 563.69

Citi Simplicity AU 5300.00 Current Balance 5041.54 Balance tranfer from Discover card 0 APR for 18 months

Citi Diamond Primary 980.00 Current balance 392.90

Bank Of Amercia 5000.00 AU only Current Balance 0

Us Bank Loan 1007.91 I will be closing this one today.

2 car loans

Revelate · ‎03-03-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello everyone. I am new to this so Ill try to explain my situation. Hope you all can understand. Thank you in advance. So I have maybe around 15 credit cards. 2 years ago I went on this rampage of applying to almost everything. So ofcoarse not knowing it would impact my score. Now that I am more aware I try no to get any inquiries. Well last week my husband was trying to get a loan with both our names. It turns out he only qualify by hismelf. Not with me. And BAM...another inquiry on me. He apaligized but I said to forget about it. They told him the reason I didnt qualify was beacuse I have to much open credit. Is there such a thing? Anyways, I started thinking the reason my score doesnt go up was because I too many. So I wanted to close some store credit that i feel I wont use. And just keep the major ones. Here is what I have.....

ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH- AU 750.00 closed today
VICTORIA SECRET- PRIMARY 750.00 Still Active Current Balance 0
Macys- Primary 600.00 Current Balance 296.62
Walmart- Primary 800.00 Current Balance 0
Target-AU 600.00 Current balance 497.86
Sears- Primary 800.00 Current Balance 0
Sears Mastercard Primary 2000.00 Current Balance 1646.72
Discover Card 4500.00 Current Balance 0
Capital One Mastercard 2300.00 Current Balance 0
Capital One Visa Primary 750.00 Current Balance 563.69
Citi Simplicity AU 5300.00 Current Balance 5041.54 Balance tranfer from Discover card 0 APR for 18 months
Citi Diamond Primary 980.00 Current balance 392.90
Bank Of Amercia 5000.00 AU only Current Balance 0
Us Bank Loan 1007.91 I will be closing this one today.
2 car loans

Welcome to the forums!

While there is such a thing at some lenders, it's basically an unarguable excuse; you don't have that much open credit compared to many people, and 15ish tradelines isn't a bad thing. What was the loan that you were trying to obtain? Personal loans can be difficult beasts and I wouldn't read too much into a denial from one honestly, and further, opening up a bunch of accounts a few years ago all wasn't a bad plan at all from a credit building perspective.

Before you run off and do anything, find out what your credit score is (you get a free Transunion FICO 8 from both your Discover and Walmart cards) and only pay off that US Bank loan if it makes sense... which it likely doesn't given I'm guessing it's APR is less than your credit card balances. Do what makes financial sense first, $$ > FICO honestly and kick non-budgetted cash towards lowering the credit card debt that isn't sitting on a 0% APR promo. Cap 1 and Sears and of course the Citi cards are hurting you from a scoring perspective, the installment loan not really if at all.

Also I would highly recommend pulling your 3 reports from annual credit reports, and see if there's any negative information or mistakes on them, and then seeing about fixing those if so.

Anonymous · ‎03-03-2016

Thank you for taking the time to answer. My husband got a personal loan. Not that much only 5000.00 from his work through a credit union. It is to buy a used little truck for our soon to be 18 year old son. If I get my credit report will that affect my score too? I heard everytime we pull the credit score points go down. Im so confused. Also my mom got approved with 2 new credit cards BofA and AMEX. I am an authorize user. Will that help my score too?

Revelate · ‎03-03-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you for taking the time to answer. My husband got a personal loan. Not that much only 5000.00 from his work through a credit union. It is to buy a used little truck for our soon to be 18 year old son. If I get my credit report will that affect my score too? I heard everytime we pull the credit score points go down. Im so confused. Also my mom got approved with 2 new credit cards BofA and AMEX. I am an authorize user. Will that help my score too?

If you yourself pull your credit, it's not a problem; it's when someone else pulls your credit as a result of an application that it can ding your score. Soft pull and hard pull respectively; you can check your own credit as often as you'd like. Discover and Walmart should both have your FICO score listed already most likely, and looking at the score there won't impact you at all... neither will pulling your reports from annualcreditreports, nor would using Credit Karma as a laudable example either (though the extra information there besides the base credit reports, can be ignored).

Adding AU's only typically helps in the following two scenarios:

You're a thin file
The age and pristine history of the AU is better than your current credit file average

You ain't the first, and brand spanking new accounts don't qualify for the second.

The first step to fixing credit is finding out what's actually there; can already see you have some revolving utilization issues but you wouldn't have taken the balance transfer if you had the cash to write the check most likely, so that's something to fix with time. Regarding removing yourself from AU Accounts, do it strategically: namely, if there's an AU that doesn't have a lot of history on it, that's a better candidate to remove than an AU that has been open for a long period of time.

Also, if you're not using the Simplicity as a daily use card (which you really shouldn't be) get rid of that as an AU and take that maxxed out credit card boatanchor off your credit report . That would be the only one I'd say dump without knowing anything else, as that's a straight negative that'll be around for a while if you're on the 18 month payment plan.

Appleman · ‎03-03-2016

If I were to make suggestions: (free advice is only worth what you pay for it!)

Assumption that >90% Utilization is considered MAXXED and should be first goal to pay down or remove.

I would work on the recommendations in order.

Steps 1-4 will take $861.91 and will bring all cards to below 50% utilization.

1. Target remove yourself as an AU (82% utilization) This is getting closed to MAXXED

2. Citi Simply Remove yourself as AU (95.12% Utilization) This is MAXXED

3. Pay down Sears from $1645.72 to below $980.00 (Utilization from 85.34% to 49%)

4. Pay down Capital one from $563.69 to below $367.50 (Utilization from 75.52% to 49%)

5. Snowball the remaining cards

If it were my money that is how I would approach the debt. And first rule should be no new debt.

Utilization%

ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH- AU 750.00 closed today -

VICTORIA SECRET- PRIMARY 750.00 Still Active Current Balance 0 0

Macys- Primary 600.00 Current Balance 296.62 49.40

Walmart- Primary 800.00 Current Balance 0 0

Target-AU 600.00 Current balance 497.86 82.97 Authorized User (remove yourself)

Sears- Primary 800.00 Current Balance 0 0

Sears Mastercard Primary 2000.00 Current Balance 1646.72 85.34

Discover Card 4500.00 Current Balance 0 0

Capital One Mastercard 2300.00 Current Balance 0 0

Capital One Visa Primary 750.00 Current Balance 563.69 75.52

Citi Simplicity AU 5300.00 Current Balance 5041.54 Balance tranfer 95.12 (remove yourself)

Citi Diamond Primary 980.00 Current balance 392.90 40.09

Bank Of Amercia 5000.00 AU only Current Balance 0 0

Us Bank Loan 1007.91 I will be closing this one today. -

2 car loans

Anonymous · ‎03-03-2016

Omg! I never thought of removing myself. That is a good idea. I paid of Macy's and Citi Diamond a while ago. In 2 weeks I will pay off Capital one. And I will start working on the other ones. Thank you so much.

takeshi74 · ‎03-04-2016

There's certainly such as thing as "too much credit". No creditor is going to extend infinite credit to anyone. However, what's "too much" for one may not be for the next or may be "waaay too much" for the next. The amount of credit a creditor is willing to extend is going to vary by credit profile. A creditor will also consider total credit extended to you. For the product you were applying for the creditor felt that you had too much credit given your credit profile. If you went to a different creditor/product that comfort level could be different. The creditor could be comfortable with more or less. If you credit profile was stronger then these creditors would probably be willing to extend more and be comfortable with more overall credit extended to you.

While I'd suggest closing accounts that you have no use for I would recommend understanding how credit is assessed before you assume the closing accounts will solve your problems. Several of your cards have high revolving utilization (balance / limit) and that's a problem given the impact of revolving utilization. 30% is a generally suggested maximum but it is far from ideal. Get those balances down.

Dont close revolving accounts until you get your balances down as that will increase your revolving utilization. Revolving utilization on each card matters but your overall revolving utilization for all cards matters as well and cards with 0 balances are helping your overall revolving utilization. Definitely do not close any account with a balance. Some may report with 100% revolving utilization which will not help.

Being an AU is not inherently beneficial and if you already have several accounts of your own then don't rely on being an AU. All being an AU means is that the account may show up on your reports. For accounts that do, the details of the account matter. When such accounts are considered they generally factor in like any other account and the standard factors matter.

http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx

Generally speaking you want 100% positive Payment History -- no lates, collections or other derogs. You revolving utilization to be as low as possible given its impact. Revolving utilization falls under Amounts Owed. You generally want older accounts to help with Average Age of Accounts which falls under Length of Credit History.

Derogs, high revolving utilization and new accounts generally don't help with their respective factors. Clean Payment History, low utilization and old accounts are desirable.

Anonymous · ‎03-04-2016

I will remove myself of all AU. Also I am not late on any payments. Always pay before due date. I am payments big off some credit cards off. Thank you everybody for all the info.