Unsure if I should cancel a CareCredit account.

[Bitzits]

Hello!

I am very new here and only researched a few relevant threads.

Long story short, I unintentionally was approved for a CareCredit card for an upcoming surgery.

I do not want a care-credit card, nor did I really enjoy having wool pulled over my eyes- which seems to be common with CareCredit.

This was a new hard inquery, and a new account added to my report. Thus, it dropped my GOOD Credit score down about 60 points to FAIR.

It has dropped my avg account age to 6 months.  And ofcourse, nobody, not the doctors, not carecredit, etc are willing to simply reverse the process. I wanted to see if there was any advice to what I should do. Is it possible to close the account, and raise my account age avergae? Any way to improve my credit score?

Thanks!

[JoeRockhead]

Once the approval happens, there's no going back unless they grant a goodwill deletion of the closed account altogether. 

60 points is rather harsh, what scores are you looking at, Vantage, Fico 8?

[Bitzits]

Fico 8 I believe. Was roughly at 720, and dropped to around 660.

So if I close the account, would my average age rise, and then potentially raise back up on the credit score?

[NoHardLimits]

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@Bitzits wrote:

Fico 8 I believe. Was roughly at 720, and dropped to around 660.

So if I close the account, would my average age rise, and then potentially raise back up on the credit score?

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Unless the account was completely removed from your reports, FICO scoring will still count it as a new account whether open or closed.  Vantage scoring may return some points as they often use the average age of OPEN accounts statistic.

Edit to say:  If you can't get the account completely removed, you may as well keep the account open.  It will help your utilization ratio (especially if you don't use it), and it will eventually help with your aging metrics. 

[FicoMike0]

Maybe one of the wizards who really know will chime in, but I can't see that big a drop.  I don't think someone can open you an account without your informed consent. I'd approach it as fraud.

[CorpCrMgr1]

@Bitzits  you could contact CareCredit and request the card and HP be removed. I have done this and helped others do it. Writing to the executive office may also work. Good chance you would be forever blacklisted. 

[FicoMike0]

I did it with a bank I call wf .  I applied, they turned me down, too many recent inquiries. Sent me a letter. I called them and said i m sure glad they turned me down, because I d idn't remember applying, maybe it's fraud? Maybe a bad memory day,lol. They replied, we can't have that, we'll make it go away. Now, wf had a little problem with opening accounts their clients didnt ask for, so I think they re sensitive about it.

Fast forward 5 months, I applied again, they approved online and paid me a $200 bribe for my trouble. Paid me another $325 for opening a checking account. No blacklist, they love me, lol. I'd go by their office for coffee, but I don't think they have one in my timezone.

[FlaDude]

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@FicoMike0 wrote:

Maybe one of the wizards who really know will chime in, but I can't see that big a drop. 

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If one new account dropped average age to 6 months, that is a very thin file.

[FicoMike0]

Still, 60 points? Sounds like fico8 vs V3.  Or some other crabapples  to Osage Oranges comparison.  I just looked, my tu fico9 is +66 from my tu fico4.   Here's a good one, tu v3 + 85 = tu fico9.

[Barkius]

The only way I could see that is maybe on Vantage 4 which is extremely new account sensitive