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Credit Report Question

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Anonymous
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Credit Report Question

How long before you can remove a paid/closed account from your credit report?

Message 1 of 6
5 REPLIES 5
MarineVietVet
Moderator Emeritus

Re: Credit Report Question

 


@Anonymous wrote:

How long before you can remove a paid/closed account from your credit report?


 

Hello and welcome to the forums.

 

Is it closed in good standing? If so you wouldn't want it removed. It continues to help your AAoA (Average Age of Accounts) and credit length history for up to 10 years after closing.

 

Or are you talking about an account with some type of derogatory such as late payments, charge offs, collections?

 

 

 

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802
EQ - 7/06-663, 3/10-800
TU - 8/10-772
You can do the same thing with hard work


Message 2 of 6
fused
Moderator Emeritus

Re: Credit Report Question

 


@Anonymous wrote:

 

How long before you can remove a paid/closed account from your credit report?


 

Welcome to the forums!

 

I'm moving your post to the general credit topics forum.

Message 3 of 6
RobertEG
Legendary Contributor

Re: Credit Report Question

Consumers dont remove accounts from their credit files.  Accounts were reported by credtitors, and deletion is done only at their request.

The only exception to that is for very old accounts (closed for more than 10 years).  The CRA may delete very old accounts to clean up their files, but that is usually not done, and something that the consumer has no control over.

Usually, consumers have the opposite motivation...they dont want old accounts deleted, for when they are, they then lose the age of that account in their length of credit history.

 

Message 4 of 6
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Credit Report Question

I just signed up to check my FICO score out of curiosity.  In 2005 it was 820.   My score today (8/15/2010) was 787  with one agency and 776 with the other.

 

I own my home, my corporation, and have no debt other than the credit cards I use for monthly business and personal expenses.  All of the cards are paid in full every month, no late charges, always on time, ALWAYS. 

 

My bank manager asked me to open a LOC with Suntrust for $100K a few years back.  I did not need it, but it was a favor to her and helped her make some internal numbers.  I agreed to do this as long as the bank guaranteed me that there would never ever be any charges associated with having the LOC (a yearly fee of $150 is waived every year).  This was done in writing by the local manager and the area VP.   I have never used the account, it was a favor for the manager.

 

However, from my credit report I see that I have 37 open lines of credit!!  Yikes!  These are things like a Goody's Card, Home Depot Card, Kohls, and so on.  No balances on them, they were opened for special promotions where I could save $50.00 here or 20% there.   I paid them the one time they were used and never used them again.

 

I could eliminate nearly all of these open lines of credit.   I only need four or five cards to keep various business expenses separated (one for personal).

 

Not that a score of 787 is bad, it was just odd to see if drop that far while my financial position has improved greatly. The open lines of credit were the only reason that the two agencies gave me any negative aspects on my two reports.

 

If I close them all but the absolute four or five that I need to keep, how long would it take to see my score rise again?   I am going to close most of these open credit cards regardless, I simply forgot that these accounts were still open.   It is sort of scary and in retrospect, reckless on my part in this day and age of credit theft.  I cut up the cards after I paid off the balances but it never occurred to me to close the accounts.  I would not have done this had I not gotten my FICO score today and read through some of the forums.   THANK YOU for the eye opener.

 

Thank you in advance for your responses, I signed up for a one time report but may choose to become a full time member.

 

DougU4 

 

Thank you for the great input in these forums, it has been quite an eye opener. 

Message 5 of 6
MarineVietVet
Moderator Emeritus

Re: Credit Report Question

Hi and welcome to the forums.

 

Closing CC accounts with zero balances will do no immediate damage to your score. They will continue to help your AAoA (Average Age of Accounts) and credit length history for up to 10 years after closing.

 

Here is an excellent thread about Closing Credit Cards.

 

 

 

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802
EQ - 7/06-663, 3/10-800
TU - 8/10-772
You can do the same thing with hard work


Message 6 of 6
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