Is it a good idea to close a credit card?

[Anonymous]

Hey all! So I have a handul of cards, two of which that are not well known, "bad credit" credit cards. about $750 is their combined lines. (0 balance) I've had them for close to a year.

I also have a Fingerhut account that I just keep for the utilization effect on my report, and then I have two Cap 1's with low util that I've had around 5 years. 

My question is, do you think it would affect me negatively to close the bad credit credit cards? Quite frankly, theyre embarrassing to even have in my wallet. 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[grillandwinemaster]

Close the bad credit cards today!

Your 5 year old Cap1 cards are the ones carrying your AAofA. Close Fingerhut as well.  Have you applied/opened better cards? I can't really tell at what stage your at in your rebuilding efforts. 

Best credit wishes to you!

[Anonymous]

Do the bad credit cards have fees?   If so, certainly get rid of them.   For cards with no AFs, you run into two schools of thought, each convinced that they are the only right answer:

1) Keep them!   They help util, AAoA, and do no harm.  One day you may be able to PC them to useful cards, and/or get CLIs to useful amounts

2) Close them!  They do no good, usually have very small limits so don't really do anything for util, will stay for 10 years so AAoA isn't really impacted, you have to continue to monitor them for fraud etc, reduce the clutter!

(2 is correct BTW!)

ETA: You don't need to keep them in your wallet if they are an embarrasement!

[jacetx]

This thread will explain in more details the effect of closing credit cards.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Closing-Credit-Cards/m-p/347190

[Anonymous]

Keep the Cap 1 cards open and close the bad ones. It literally will not affect you.

[Anonymous]

Despite my preference for "Close them!", we should also be aware that there is a possibility that the scoring process might change at some point.   I believe that Vantage only counts age of open accounts, and if at any point that is determined to be more predictive, FICO 10 or whatever could follow suit, and then your closed cards effectively disappear.    Of course, anything else could change as well ("Lates are good!", well , maybe not!) so probably not worth making decisions on.

[Anonymous]

I havent. I have 3 baddies on my report, some medical bills from about 2 years ago. I've been carrying high balances up until about 6 months ago, so I've been trying to get those paid down first...tried to get a Barclay card and was denied so just kinda stayed away from applying. Kinda wanna get all the scores above 600 before applying again I think...Thank you!

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@grillandwinemaster wrote:

Close the bad credit cards today!

Your 5 year old Cap1 cards are the ones carrying your AAofA. Close Fingerhut as well.  Have you applied/opened better cards? I can't really tell at what stage your at in your rebuilding efforts. 

Best credit wishes to you!

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[Chris679]

Close the crap, keep good ones open. Bye Fingerhut.

[Anonymous]

Fingerhut is about a third of my available credit though. Wouldn't it look bad to close it?

[Chris679]

If you are concerned with utilization you need to pay off debts asap then close the crap. If it is your highest limit I suppose it may not be a bad idea to keep it for a while but just the thought of that gives me the heeby jeebys.