topic Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open? in Credit Cards

Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:19:21 GMT

Alrighty so i have restructured my credit cards significantly recently and i have a couple of cards that i feel are useless and im not sure if i should cancel.

1. Fingerhut. I think i have a $1,000 limit. I have never used the credit, not once. Honestly i dont even remember opening the thing! It Is one of my older lines of credit.

2. Capital one secured. This is my first and oldest credit card. Limit has, and apparently will always be $750 as they dont do product transfers or CLI on secured cards. There is an annual fee on this card. I never ever use it but it is my oldest.

3. NCSECU- This is a local credit union card. Again, one of my older ones. The limit sits at $1,000 as i dont want to waste a HP on it cause i never use it. No annual fee.

4. Wells Fargo- My 2nd credit card ever. Currently has a $3200 limit. No fee on it. Honestly dont really use it but just wanted to see what you guys think.

My current cards that i do use are the Chase Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Saphirre Preferred-Amex Blue Card, Amex Gold.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:27:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Alrighty so i have restructured my credit cards significantly recently and i have a couple of cards that i feel are useless and im not sure if i should cancel.

1. Fingerhut. I think i have a $1,000 limit. I have never used the credit, not once. Honestly i dont even remember opening the thing! It Is one of my older lines of credit.

2. Capital one secured. This is my first and oldest credit card. Limit has, and apparently will always be $750 as they dont do product transfers or CLI on secured cards. There is an annual fee on this card. I never ever use it but it is my oldest.

3. NCSECU- This is a local credit union card. Again, one of my older ones. The limit sits at $1,000 as i dont want to waste a HP on it cause i never use it. No annual fee.

4. Wells Fargo- My 2nd credit card ever. Currently has a $3200 limit. No fee on it. Honestly dont really use it but just wanted to see what you guys think.

My current cards that i do use are the Chase Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Saphirre Preferred-Amex Blue Card, Amex Gold.

Thanks in advance!

1/ close if you don't need the uti padding'

2. definitely close. SOOOO not woth an AF for a few months of oldest acct in 10 years.

3 being CUs are great to work with and there is no fee, I would keep this one. I think you CAN actually build a relationship with a local Cu, whereas with big banks a relationship is just an illusion. You are a number to them.

4. Better limit, but I don't care for WF after the shady things they have done. It's a coin flip. Kepp it if you need the UTI padding, close it so you have one less thing to wiorry about. But then again, that would be 2 older credit lines adding into your AAoA...

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:40:51 GMT

Close 1 and 2. No reason to have a secured card at this point get your money back. And I see no reason anyone who intends to pay for their purchase would ever use their Fingerhut card as things are about twice the going rate.

Keep 3 and 4. Who knows in 10 years from now you might want to go on an App spree and these will help your AAOA then.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:55:07 GMT

Thanks so much. Great advice

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:55:52 GMT

Thank you! cancelling 1 and 2 now

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:56:21 GMT

Awesome advice. Thank you!

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

DeeBee78 — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 21:46:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Alrighty so i have restructured my credit cards significantly recently and i have a couple of cards that i feel are useless and im not sure if i should cancel.

1. Fingerhut. I think i have a $1,000 limit. I have never used the credit, not once. Honestly i dont even remember opening the thing! It Is one of my older lines of credit.

2. Capital one secured. This is my first and oldest credit card. Limit has, and apparently will always be $750 as they dont do product transfers or CLI on secured cards. There is an annual fee on this card. I never ever use it but it is my oldest.

3. NCSECU- This is a local credit union card. Again, one of my older ones. The limit sits at $1,000 as i dont want to waste a HP on it cause i never use it. No annual fee.

4. Wells Fargo- My 2nd credit card ever. Currently has a $3200 limit. No fee on it. Honestly dont really use it but just wanted to see what you guys think.

My current cards that i do use are the Chase Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Saphirre Preferred-Amex Blue Card, Amex Gold.

Thanks in advance!

Just to piggy back, never worrying about closing your "oldest" cards because of their age. They stay on your credit reports for up to 10 years, so they continue to count towards you average age of accounts long after.

As long as closing them doesn't hurt your overall utilization, I don't see a reason to keep any of them open. Knowing from your other post that you have 33K with Chase alone, that's probably not going to be a factor either.

I've closed 10 cards this year alone, and will be closing several more over the next 5-6 months. Goodbye Amex PRG, Amex ED, Lowe's, Amazon Store card, and Chevron Visa.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 21:52:35 GMT

I would keep card #3,4.....just for the history + utilization, plus there's no annual fee. Just my opinion.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

driftless — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 22:07:36 GMT

I would close everything but your Chase and Amex cards; between those two you have some nice cards.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

wasCB14 — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 01:08:54 GMT

Do your Amex and Chase cards provide you with enough credit to keep your utilization low? If so, I'd drop #3 and #4.

And...you didn't ask but I'll bring it up...is your "Amex Gold" a regular Gold or Premier Rewards Gold?

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 01:13:29 GMT

Yes they do. And it's the premier rewards gold Amex

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 01:20:57 GMT

Burn them all before nightfall!

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

cmm89 — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 01:44:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Burn them all before nightfall!

Hahaha! Funniest comment I've seen on here in a while.

OP, close anything you don't need or any lender you don't want to further a relationship with, IMO.

I went through the same thing today. I closed my Citi secured ($200 -- would rather have the deposit. They don't seem to want to support me now that my credit is fair-decent) and my CapitalOne Platinum that was PC'd to a QS; they also don't want to give me CLI's or prequals for another card -- limit was $500. Today ML gave me $5K Merrill+ VS, and I already have $15K with BoA. I'm done with the toy limits. I'm also done with lenders who don't want to give me a chance.

But all the advice so far is excellent, including oldman's above comment!

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

wasCB14 — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 01:47:54 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Yes they do. And it's the premier rewards gold Amex

Good and good. I'd go ahead and close 3 and 4.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

SouthJamaica — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 02:48:06 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Alrighty so i have restructured my credit cards significantly recently and i have a couple of cards that i feel are useless and im not sure if i should cancel.

1. Fingerhut. I think i have a $1,000 limit. I have never used the credit, not once. Honestly i dont even remember opening the thing! It Is one of my older lines of credit.

2. Capital one secured. This is my first and oldest credit card. Limit has, and apparently will always be $750 as they dont do product transfers or CLI on secured cards. There is an annual fee on this card. I never ever use it but it is my oldest.

3. NCSECU- This is a local credit union card. Again, one of my older ones. The limit sits at $1,000 as i dont want to waste a HP on it cause i never use it. No annual fee.

4. Wells Fargo- My 2nd credit card ever. Currently has a $3200 limit. No fee on it. Honestly dont really use it but just wanted to see what you guys think.

My current cards that i do use are the Chase Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Saphirre Preferred-Amex Blue Card, Amex Gold.

Thanks in advance!

If I were you I'd just drop the Capital One card and get rid of the annual fee. I don't see any reason to drop anything else.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 13:18:36 GMT

Thanks for the advice, thats awesome i didnt know they counted after you close them!

@DeeBee78 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Alrighty so i have restructured my credit cards significantly recently and i have a couple of cards that i feel are useless and im not sure if i should cancel.

1. Fingerhut. I think i have a $1,000 limit. I have never used the credit, not once. Honestly i dont even remember opening the thing! It Is one of my older lines of credit.

2. Capital one secured. This is my first and oldest credit card. Limit has, and apparently will always be $750 as they dont do product transfers or CLI on secured cards. There is an annual fee on this card. I never ever use it but it is my oldest.

3. NCSECU- This is a local credit union card. Again, one of my older ones. The limit sits at $1,000 as i dont want to waste a HP on it cause i never use it. No annual fee.

4. Wells Fargo- My 2nd credit card ever. Currently has a $3200 limit. No fee on it. Honestly dont really use it but just wanted to see what you guys think.

My current cards that i do use are the Chase Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Saphirre Preferred-Amex Blue Card, Amex Gold.

Thanks in advance!

Just to piggy back, never worrying about closing your "oldest" cards because of their age. They stay on your credit reports for up to 10 years, so they continue to count towards you average age of accounts long after.

As long as closing them doesn't hurt your overall utilization, I don't see a reason to keep any of them open. Knowing from your other post that you have 33K with Chase alone, that's probably not going to be a factor either.

I've closed 10 cards this year alone, and will be closing several more over the next 5-6 months. Goodbye Amex PRG, Amex ED, Lowe's, Amazon Store card, and Chevron Visa.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 13:20:39 GMT

@cmm89 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Burn them all before nightfall!
Hahaha! Funniest comment I've seen on here in a while.

OP, close anything you don't need or any lender you don't want to further a relationship with, IMO.

I went through the same thing today. I closed my Citi secured ($200 -- would rather have the deposit. They don't seem to want to support me now that my credit is fair-decent) and my CapitalOne Platinum that was PC'd to a QS; they also don't want to give me CLI's or prequals for another card -- limit was $500. Today ML gave me $5K Merrill+ VS, and I already have $15K with BoA. I'm done with the toy limits. I'm also done with lenders who don't want to give me a chance.

But all the advice so far is excellent, including oldman's above comment!

Thanks for the advice! I think im closing Cap1 and Fingerhut

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

UpperNwGuy — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 13:40:31 GMT

It is my opinion that, as soon as they are able, people should close any credit card that has the reputation of being a rebuilding card or a card for people with cash management issues. That includes secured cards, cards with low credit limits that never increase, cards with high APRs that never decrease, and cards that are primarily advertised for special 0% balance transfer offers. The lenders all recognize such cards for what they are when they appear on your credit report, and if your application gets a manual review, the reputation of those cards will likely have some influence upon the loan officer's decision.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 13:47:53 GMT

@UpperNwGuy wrote:
It is my opinion that, as soon as they are able, people should close any credit card that has the reputation of being a rebuilding card or a card for people with cash management issues. That includes secured cards, cards with low credit limits that never increase, cards with high APRs that never decrease, and cards that are primarily advertised for special 0% balance transfer offers. The lenders all recognize such cards for what they are when they appear on your credit report, and if your application gets a manual review, the reputation of those cards will likely have some influence upon the lender's decision.

I tend to agree with your advice here with the exception that a manual review of a card that has 0% BT offers would be frowned upon. There are plenty of good to very good cards that offer introductory balance transfer offers (and advertised as such) and no CSR would see those as a negative. Besides that, I am not even sure that a manual review would indicate what the exact card is on your report. Other than, for example, an account for BoA, a manual review wouldn't indicate that a card was the BoA MasterCard that pretty much is just a BT card or any of the other BoA cards. Also the high APR category really depends on your definition of a high APR because a lot of the sought after cards here like the Chase Freedoms often come with a 24.74% APR that probably will never decrease. Additionally the APR would not be known to anyone looking at your reports manually.

Re: Dead Cards? Close or Leave Open?

UpperNwGuy — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 18:39:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@UpperNwGuy wrote:
It is my opinion that, as soon as they are able, people should close any credit card that has the reputation of being a rebuilding card or a card for people with cash management issues. That includes secured cards, cards with low credit limits that never increase, cards with high APRs that never decrease, and cards that are primarily advertised for special 0% balance transfer offers. The lenders all recognize such cards for what they are when they appear on your credit report, and if your application gets a manual review, the reputation of those cards will likely have some influence upon the lender's decision.
I tend to agree with your advice here with the exception that a manual review of a card that has 0% BT offers would be frowned upon. There are plenty of good to very good cards that offer introductory balance transfer offers (and advertised as such) and no CSR would see those as a negative. Besides that, I am not even sure that a manual review would indicate what the exact card is on your report. Other than, for example, an account for BoA, a manual review wouldn't indicate that a card was the BoA MasterCard that pretty much is just a BT card or any of the other BoA cards. Also the high APR category really depends on your definition of a high APR because a lot of the sought after cards here like the Chase Freedoms often come with a 24.74% APR that probably will never decrease. Additionally the APR would not be known to anyone looking at your reports manually.

But if the manual review takes place in the context of a reconsideration call initiated by the applicant, information not found on the credit report may well become known to the loan officer.