Has Anyone Ever Cancelled a Card Almost Immediately?

[Johnny_Favorite]

Has anyone ever cancelled a card out of sheer buyer's remorse type situation? I am having second thoughts about opening one of my cards and was wondering how bad it would be if I just called up and said, "I changed my mind, please cancel this card."

How this happened was that the card is offered at different rates and frankly, they gave me the worst rate possible. I will never use the card and  I shouldn't have applied in the first place. Is it a bad thing if I just call them up and tell them forget it? I'm not worried about my relationship with this company and don't care if I ever have a card with them. All I care about is that it won't look "weird" on my credit and spook other people.

[LS2982]

I have. Kay jewelers swore up and down their approvals were all SP's on EQ and a freeze on my reports would not matter. Well I applied and got approved........for $300. What?? So im like no I need to talk to customer service and they tell me that they couldnt access my file so we gave you a "starter account". Ummm no close it please.

[navigatethis12]

Some do this and have success with it never reporting to the bureaus. You should ask them if they can not report it and if they say they will, you should just go ahead and keep it. Did you plan to carry a balance with this card?

[Johnny_Favorite]

No, I didn't plan on carrying a balance much but I would like the option with any card.

[dddewdrop]

    I think you are justified to fear it might look "weird" at this point. maybe call and see if you can cancel before they report anything to the CRAs. It is probably too late and they may report of this card as a result of them approving you and hard pulling you. If a tradeline has been created by them then it may be better for you just to throw it in your sock drawer and forget it if there is no annual fee.

[pdog661]

Call and see if they can stop the account from reporting.

If they have already reported, well, you have it listed for the next 10 years.

A closed account with no baddies will report and count towards AAoA for the next ten years.

If the card has no annual fee then I say just keep it open.  Your score will already have the effect of the HP and the drop in AAoA if its open or closed.

I had the same feeling with my Macy's card.  My wife convinced me at check out to apply and save the 25% they were offering.  Instant remorse.  They only gave me a 1K limit, and opened 2 new trend lines.  The Macy's card I was approved was the macys amex which means you can use it outside the store.  The macy's store card reports, and the macys amex reports as two separate cards.  Good bye AAoA.  I kept the card for 3 months, and then called to request a CLI.  I stated that this card is well below my other limits, and with such a low limit is truly not a value to me.  They moved the amex line to 5K, and the store card to 2.3K.

[Revelate]

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@Johnny_Favorite wrote:

No, I didn't plan on carrying a balance much but I would like the option with any card.

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Personally I'd get a card specifically designed for carrying balances if it were me (and I do plan to do this when my own file supports it).  If you try to obtain balance-carrying cards for everything, then your rewards for your spending will suffer.  

I think that opening and closing an account immediately, if they do report it (which some or even many do anecdotally) in my opinion it doesn't look good from a future underwriting perspective.  It may not be an issue but I try to hedge my bets, and I can't see any way that a future creditor would view this as a positive, at best it's neutral.

If they don't report it, then it's only the one lender you have to be concerned about.  That all said, there's probably lots of people that have done this historically anyway.

[sassymomof2]

About 10 or 11 years ago, I got a Speigel card with a $300 limit and my lowest credit lines at the time were $5k and up.  I called them and had them close it because I didn't want a toy line.  I never had any questions about it on my credit reports and it never caused any other creditors heartburn.  After my credit crashed and burned, I was happy to have the positive-though short-tradeline reporting to help me out. 

Same for Brylane home-I stopped using them because I only got to $800 with them.  After about 2 years, it closed itself out. 

[chnceit]

Yup I did when I was rebuilding my credit 6 years or so ago. Credit One. I got the card and read the terms and was like oh hell no!

[LS2982]

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@chnceit wrote:
Yup I did when I was rebuilding my credit 6 years or so ago. Credit One. I got the card and read the terms and was like oh hell no!

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I wish I could have cancelled myself when I found out there was no grace period.