Story time and some help?

[nguye719]

Hello Fico Folks!

First time I checked my credit score and did a little research and was wondering if you guys could assist me in increasing my credit score.

First I'm 23 years old and have the following cards:

Best buy: 0 balance 2 years  credit limit 600

Capital one:0 balance 4 years credit limit 1500

Citi Bank: 0 balance 2 years credit limit 1700

Wells fargo visa: 0 balance 1 year credit limit 3200

american express: 0 balance just applied credit limit 3500.

goodmans jewelers 0 balance 1 year credit limit 6800

I recently paid off all my credit cards and got rid of the balance on each one and decided to check my score, it hasn't updated yet but what Im curious is to how much will my score jump once it shows that my cards are all paid off

My current score is 702

I never missed a payment before  and the only loans i have out right now are two school loans that should be paid by the end of 2013.

Questions:

1. I want to cancel my capital one and  focus on using my new american express card, citi and wells fargo due to their credit limit and capital one never increased my limit for the past 2 years, will that affect my credit score?

2. I have a 0 balance on all credit cards, when should i expect my score to change and roughly to what score?

Thank you for everyones time!

[llecs]

Welcome!

Cancelling your CapOne won't have a positive or negative scoring impact if your balances are at $0. Once your CapOne reaches $0 and closed, FICO will remove it from util scoring purposes. Your before and after util will be at 0% and therefore no change.

The answer to what your new score will be when all CCs reach 0% is "it depends". It depends on the before and after util change, and it depends on your overall credit. For example, if every card were maxed out at 100% and you hit 0%, you can easily see 100 points gained depending on your credit. If all of them were at 10%, then much less would be gained. It also depends on what score you are looking at. If a FICO you can see some large gains. If a non-FICO (we call them FAKOs), the gain is much less.

[nguye719]

Thank you so much for your help!

[nguye719]

One last question i do have is that I read that since my capital one was my first credit score i shouldn't close it. Is that true? because if thats the case my longest credit history would be 2 years instead of 4?

[shakalaka]

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@nguye719 wrote:

One last question i do have is that I read that since my capital one was my first credit score i shouldn't close it. Is that true? because if thats the case my longest credit history would be 2 years instead of 4?

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No, it will report for 10 more years after the closing and will be factored in the AAOA.

[RobertEG]

The only adverse affect will be the loss of the CL in your combined CL, used to calculate your overall % util.  Since your overall CL wont drop that much, closure most likely wont affect your overall % util, and definately wont if you keep your balances at or near zero.

The scoring affect could be more pronounced if it was a very high CL card, but in your case, it is not a very significant issue.

[brother7]

My advice re: the Capital One card is if there's no annual fee and it doesn't cost you anything to keep it open, just keep it and sock drawer it.