I’ll add only a couple thoughts to this is to completely ignore the CSR who told you that you would not need to pay back the outstanding balance. If your account is closed with a balance, you will need to pay that off absolutely as soon as possible. Once closed, the bureaus will report the account as being at 100% utilization until the balance is zero. This hurts your score directly, but also may spook any other lenders you have who see that you have had an account shut down with a non-zero balance. Adverse action from other creditors may follow.
The biggest takeaway would be that in your situation, please use your cards only for purchases you can pay back immediately with cash on hand. You mentioned being an Uber driver when you have a car, which implies some income instability. If so, definitely protect yourself and your credit by using cards as a transactor (using and PIF every month) rather than floating a balance month to month. It will alleviate stress and help prevent NSF payment returns and thus further damage to your credit history. I’d say to build a spreadsheet to track all of your cards - balances, limits, due dates, and a yes/no column to note whether that month’s bill has been paid. Taking active 100% responsibility for your accounts is necessary to be successful in handling credit, and that includes knowing and admitting that outside of a software glitch that causes an electronic payment not to post, having anything less than a 100% on-time payment record lies solely with you. The banks insist upon it as a condition of your LOC. Continued access to that credit depends on payments on or before the date, not a week or a month or ten minutes after. Seeing it on the computer in front of you can help a huge amount in staying on track.
