Is It A Bad Thing To Have Many Store Cards

[Anonymous]

I have 6 store cards 3 gas cards is that a bad thing. I only have 3 Major CC Capital One, Orchard & BOFA. 11 Of these accounts were opened this past year believe it or not. I was rebuilding cause i never applied or thought i could have credit while i was in my BK. Wish i would i knew about this forum 3 years ago.

[score_building]

mjbfan79 wrote:
I have 6 store cards 3 gas cards is that a bad thing. I only have 3 Major CC Capital One, Orchard & BOFA. 11 Of these accounts were opened this past year believe it or not. I was rebuilding cause i never applied or thought i could have credit while i was in my BK. Wish i would i knew about this forum 3 years ago.

well after the first one there is supposedly no further fico 'mix' benefit.  of course if you have no use for any of them, that is not a good thing since it makes it a bit more challenging to keep them in action (eg. my Dell card). 

in any case, they still help to build good a credit record with on time payments.  i do suspect that at least on manual review a prime lender wouldn't love a mess of store accts which are typically v. high interest.

personally i like to have more room for regular cc accts which have more utility for me so i kinda wish i hadn't got 4 (2 would have been fine).

[haulingthescoreup]

Well, it's not like their presence hurts your score, as long as you're on top of them, of course.

One possible problem might be that store cards typically have low CL's, except those from the big box stores (Home Depot, Lowe's, Best Buy.) We've seen that many banks don't want to give you limits higher than what you've already got, as they are pretty chicken in this area. There are also indications that having lots of low-limit cards bothers lenders, as they wonder what's up with that. So this might affect future apps and CLI's.

And then there's the hassle of keeping all the cards active. A hassle for me, anyway, as I'm not much of a shopper. I can use a bank card anywhere, but a store card requires that I shop at that store, or its online version. To me, store cards are like cats --one or two, maybe even three are great, but after that, I start feeling like a Cat Lady.

But for anyone rebuilding credit, having a chunk of open CC's (of any kind) is helpful, as long as you treat them well. Every month that your Bubba's Gas/ Videos/ Live Bait store card reports clean history, your previous not-so-clean history is diluted. You're showing lenders that yes, you might have screwed up in the past, but now you are responsible with credit.


eta: Well, score_building both out-typed me and condensed me! --good post

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 07-22-2009 09:24 AM

[dallasjetfan]

I can't give much input, but I know I paid off my Walmart ($400), Target ($200), Chevron ($400) and PayPal ($600).  I can't stand have low balances or having to pay attention to all of these accounts.  Since doing this, my score has gone up 23 points.  I'm sure it has to do with $0 balances and not with closing, but these were all of my youngest accounts which might be helping.  I am trying to get rid of all, but 3-4 accounts.