topic Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me in Credit Cards

Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 18:58:30 GMT

Open sky is my longest and oldest account ( 1 year more then my second current )

I never use the card. I called to cancel it and told them.

The CS Rep was kinda funny as she said " Well if you want to close your account, it will show as user closed on your credit report, and that will negatively affect your credit report and score. To avoid that, I can waive your upcoming annual fee as a once in a liftime of the account thing "

That caught me off guard for 2 reasons. 1) Thats not true ( i think ) and I think its crazy that they would scare people saying that, and 2) Open sky never wants to waive anything

I told her ill think about it and call back. My annaul fee statement won't hit for a few more days. Now this Rep has me thinking of just keeping the card.

Ugh I feel EVERYTIME i wanna cancel this card, something pulls me in.

Any advice? Also, do they send me something saying the account is closed and in good standing after its complete?

Thanks

Re: Closing open sky card ; they want to waive annual fee; Rep scared me

FinStar — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 19:01:56 GMT

You have the option to close the card if it no longer serves a purpose and/or you've moved on to other/better products.

The closed account will still factor into your AAoA for several years - up to 10 years if anything. About the only possible impact would be if closing it reduced your overall utilization significantly.

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

Pap_32 — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 19:09:33 GMT

If you don’t use it and there’s a Annual fee I would close it. Accounts in good standing will still be on you report for up to 10 years if I’m not mistaken. The only thing that your really losing is the credit limit. But as long as your not really high in Utilization right now you’re fine.

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 19:16:42 GMT

I had an Open Sky card for 2 years when I started rebuilding. It served its purpose and I have moved on to better cards. Close it. It will show up as:

Credit line closed-consumer request-reported by subscriber

Account closed at consumer's request

No harm to you or your credit. It will remain on your credit for 10 years.

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

calyx — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 19:20:35 GMT

The comment "closed by user" will absolutely not harm your score, and I sincerely doubt it would harm you if a human saw it during a manual review. It's what my Opensky says and I haven't had a problem.

If Opensky volunteered to waive my AF, I would've kept it another year. It can't hurt anything, and you can just set a calendar reminder to close it next year. Or you could just close it if it's easier for you not to keep track of it (or if you just feel like it - you do you!).

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 19:44:50 GMT

IF you want to close the card, CLOSE it

The last thing you want is card open that you "forget" about, and forget a payment or other nonsense.

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

KJinNC — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 19:51:11 GMT

Technically, if they will waive the fee for another year, it might be mathematically best to leave it open for the free year. That way, the account age will project out one year further into the future (it will already be there for roughly a decade, so this would take that to roughly 11 years).

But that said, if it were me, I'd go ahead and cancel just for one fewer thing to think about. "Closed at user request" is a positive, if anything, as far as I know. It certainly does not hurt scoring.

That said, there are actually two ways that closing a card could hurt your credit. The one everybody mentions is if it reduces your overall credit limit enough to cause your utilization percentage to go up, but it could also hurt if it drops you from three cards to two cards, because you get a small scoring bonus with three open cards.

Other than those two things, it will not hurt to close it, and again, I probably would close it if I were you.

The bigger issue is, does this mean Open Sky is getting a little sleazy? Or maybe just one bad CSR?

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

gorgon — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 20:29:28 GMT

I would go ahead and close it. Even if it's not costing you the annual fee to keep it another year, it is tying up your security deposit that could be used for more useful things like an emergency fund or payment on a high interest loan/credit card.

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

Streetervillelady — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 21:20:06 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Open sky is my longest and oldest account ( 1 year more then my second current )

I never use the card. I called to cancel it and told them.

The CS Rep was kinda funny as she said " Well if you want to close your account, it will show as user closed on your credit report, and that will negatively affect your credit report and score. To avoid that, I can waive your upcoming annual fee as a once in a liftime of the account thing "

That caught me off guard for 2 reasons. 1) Thats not true ( i think ) and I think its crazy that they would scare people saying that, and 2) Open sky never wants to waive anything

I told her ill think about it and call back. My annaul fee statement won't hit for a few more days. Now this Rep has me thinking of just keeping the card.

Ugh I feel EVERYTIME i wanna cancel this card, something pulls me in.

Any advice? Also, do they send me something saying the account is closed and in good standing after its complete?

Thanks

The CSR was trying to mess with your head to keep the account open. All accounts closed by the consumer state just that on the CRA reports. You can request a letter stating that the account was closed at your request. I would get a copy of the last statement with a zero balance to keep for your records.

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

I_Love_Cards — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 21:20:59 GMT

I think the reps for these cards are trained to try and keep people from canceling no matter what.

When I called to close my Indigo card, the rep argued with me that I might need it for emergencies. I asked her what kind of emergency she had that was less than $300 (the limit on the card - with a $75 AF)?

Closed by consumer isn’t a negative.

I don’t know what your history looks like or how old this card is (or your others), but I will offer that I have gotten responses from at least 2 banks that I don’t have enough open revolving accounts open for more than 2 years. In fairness, I don’t. But it’s something I’m cognizant of now in choosing when to close my terrible cards.

If you’re also running low on open revolving accounts over 2 years old, and they will waive the AF, then keeping it open another year might be worth it.

Closing the account will not affect average age of accounts (as it will stay on your report and be factored into your account age).

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Dec 2019 01:44:30 GMT

Yes, just trying to get you to keep the card. With the right will, anything can be negative:

1) Closed by credit grantor: Oh, you did something they didn't like (which could minor such as lack of use all the way up to fraud and default)

2) Closed by consumer: Oh, so you just close cards whenever you feel like it? So if I gave you my card, you would probably close it at some point?

3) No closed cards: "Too much available credit"

So, don't sweat what the CSR said!

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

KJinNC — Sat, 28 Dec 2019 02:35:50 GMT

To my way of thinking, if a card is going to close, the best possible note would be "closed at customer's request."

Though it would be theoretically preferable to have opened all of your cards 20+ years ago and kept all the same cards, never closing or opening anything from that point ... obviously, that's not reality for most people. So if a card is going to be closed, it's going to either be the lender's choice or the customer's choice, and if it's the lender's choice, that means the customer did something "wrong" (might just be inactivity).

Any human who is looking at your file and sees that you closed an Open Sky card isn't going to think too hard about why you closed it or assume that means you close cards willy-nilly, IMO.

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Dec 2019 14:25:56 GMT

A long time ago I had a secured Capital One card. By the time the annual fee came around I had two unsecured cards with higher credit limits.

I asked them to graduate the card, they said no, I cancelled the card without a minute's regret.

It is ridiculous to pay money for a few extra points on an already good credit score.

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 19:51:11 GMT

Well I called back and spoke with the nicest rep. Would have credited the annual fee, but I took the plunge since the fee hits tomorrow and decided to finally close it. I almost feel bad about it. My oldest card. Granted all my other cards are about 13 months younger then this ( over 4 years per ) but still...

You will be missed, and you did me well. Didn't need to get rid of you, but just felt it was time =[

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

AllZero — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 21:07:21 GMT

Congratulations on your closure!

Re: Closing open sky card ; Rep scared me

KJinNC — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 22:04:54 GMT

I understand how you feel. The first lender who gave me a card this time around was Citi. I felt some loyalty and affinity for Citi due to that, and kept that secured card after closing several others when I started getting unsecured cards. But after thinking about it for a few weeks, I just didn't see myself carrying a $200 secured card for another year or more once I had a number of better cards. I have a positive feeling about Citi because of that card, it just wasn't doing me any good anymore. And that card didn't even have an annual fee