Risky Behavior

[CivalV]

Just curious if I closed 2 cards, if this could raise a flag with my other creditors?

I have been sitting on closing my two first premier cards. They have an outrageous APR & monthly fees that I am quite sick of paying. 

I am being offered a transfer balance on my Citi Cotsco with a 15% APR.. I know, not low but wayyy lower than First Premier *29%*. My thoughts were to transfer the First Premier balance over to Citi pay it before my Citi statement cuts May 25th so I don't worry about interest & close the First Premier CCs after they report $0 balance statements. 

[Revelate]

If you can pay it off in a month anyway why not just pay the FP card to $0 and kill it ASAP?

Franky balance shuffling is more of a flag to some lenders (historically and anecdotally both) than closing cards.  Closing cards is a non-event to other lenders, heck you might use theirs more = winning!

[Wavester64]

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@Revelate wrote:

If you can pay it off in a month anyway why not just pay the FP card to $0 and kill it ASAP?

Franky balance shuffling is more of a flag to some lenders (historically and anecdotally both) than closing cards.  Closing cards is a non-event to other lenders, heck you might use theirs more = winning!

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^^ What @Revelate said 

[kdm31091]

As much as I've heard it repeated that closing accounts could "spook" other lenders I've found no evidence that it ever actually happens. If anything you're reducing your exposure and may use their card more like Relevate said, so not sure how it could be considered a bad thing.

[CivalV]

I had no clue balance shuffling was a thing 😦 I have never done it before and definitely wouldn't want to raise any flags. I'll just pay the FP and be done with it. It's completely useless to me and just takes $$ away for nothing 

[FICOnoob2020]

Congrats on closing your FP accounts!  I ditched both of mine last fall/winter during a spree of closing 6 subprime cards and opening 7 new ones.  Knock on wood but no AA has come of it yet.

[Anonymous]

Lol and if another lender were to look and see what was closed, and saw two FP accounts were axed, they'd probably be like "good move - I don't blame them a bit. That card sucks!"

[M_Smart007]

Close and Close!

[recoveringfrombk7]

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@kdm31091 wrote:

As much as I've heard it repeated that closing accounts could "spook" other lenders I've found no evidence that it ever actually happens. If anything you're reducing your exposure and may use their card more like Relevate said, so not sure how it could be considered a bad thing.

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I closed Credit One, Ollo, Merrick, Capital One Secured, Capital One QS, and a gas card within 6 weeks of each other.  Nothing happened to the accounts I left open.  Sure this was before COVID-19, but I didn't realize closing so many cards at once was possibly bad until I had already done it haha.

[Anonymous]

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@recoveringfrombk7 wrote:

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@kdm31091 wrote:

As much as I've heard it repeated that closing accounts could "spook" other lenders I've found no evidence that it ever actually happens. If anything you're reducing your exposure and may use their card more like Relevate said, so not sure how it could be considered a bad thing.

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I closed Credit One, Ollo, Merrick, Capital One Secured, Capital One QS, and a gas card within 6 weeks of each other.  Nothing happened to the accounts I left open.  Sure this was before COVID-19, but I didn't realize closing so many cards at once was possibly bad until I had already done it haha.

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I think the only way closing can spook lenders is if losing those CLs causes a dramatic increase in % utilization, causing a large score drop.  (And if you aren't carrying a balance, you can reduce util as low as you wish).   So some of the stories might be because of this effect rather than closing per se.

I guess it COULD have an impact on getting new cards if an issuer thought "Wow, X closed a lot of cards.   If I give him/her mine, it might get closed soon too"  but never heard of that!