topic Re: Capital One tripling rate%; close the card? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Capital One tripling rate%; close the card?

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:24:55 GMT

CapitalOne is moving my rate from 2.9% to 9.9% and I have the option to close the crad and continue to pay off the balance at the 2.9% rate. I'm trying to understand the impact to my score if i close it out. Here's some relevant data:

total 3 CC's open

total credit limit authorized = $ 39,000

total credit used = $ 15,500

card in question ($15k limit, used $12.5k)

My interest payments will rise a lot and I'm trying to determine if the impact to my FICO score will be big enough to consider not closing the card, and just paying the higher interest.

Re: Capital One tripling rate%; close the card?

MattH — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:24:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
CapitalOne is moving my rate from 2.9% to 9.9% and I have the option to close the crad and continue to pay off the balance at the 2.9% rate. I'm trying to understand the impact to my score if i close it out. Here's some relevant data:

total 3 CC's open
total credit limit authorized = $ 39,000
total credit used = $ 15,500
card in question ($15k limit, used $12.5k)

My interest payments will rise a lot and I'm trying to determine if the impact to my FICO score will be big enough to consider not closing the card, and just paying the higher interest.

I strongly advise finding other ways to get that balance paid down, not transferred or moved around but paid down, for both financial and FICO reasons. If you do opt for closing the card, make sure you find out how they will report on your CRs, because if you are not allowed to place any more charges on that card they may report a limit equal to the current balance thus making it look like utilization on that card is 100 percent. Utilization is a major factor in FICO scoring, so this could be a big big deal.

Re: Capital One tripling rate%; close the card?

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:37:29 GMT

Also,

the card you are using accounts for 38.5% of your total CL...

You might also want to consider how much it will impact your AAoA.