Large number of accts on credit report - question

[Anonymous]

Back in the early days of our marriage, my hubby and I opened a huge flurry of credit card accounts "to build our credit".  Haha.

Then, back around 2000 I read about how too many open accounts were bad, and did a flurry of account closings.  Again--haha (on us).

Anyway, it's 2010 now.  We have well over 40 accounts (yes, I know) with over 25 of them "closed by consumer".  I really thought these would begin dropping off at the 7 year mark.  Then I thought maybe it was 10 years.  NONE of them has had ANY activity at all since around 2000.  They're all still there.

Is there any way go get rid of that huge number of closed accounts?  At least I had the sense to close out what were at the time younger accounts and those with small credit limits - so what's "open" now are quite old (10-15 years) and have high limits.  But, seriously, are we doomed to have 40-some accounts on our credit report for life?  Any help or advice is appreciated.  Our scores are in the high 700's, so we've kept all the accounts in good standing, but we have so many I know that's got to be what's keeping us out of the 800s.

[llecs]

Welcome to the forums!

I wish I had 40 old accounts reporting on my CR.

Do absolutely nothing to them. In fact, if removed, you'd likely experience a FICO score drop. Your length of history plays a fairly large part in FICO scoring. Not only are individual accounts considered, even if closed, but FICO looks at the overall average history (AAoA or average age of accounts). The higher the average, the better off your score.

If you pull your two FICO reports, you might see on the "Credit At-A-Glance" page a red flag next to the number of accounts. Ignore that. It is an annoying red flag and removing any account would do more harm than good.