Account Clean-up

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi All. New to the site and just recently started trying to "rebuild" an already "ok" credit. I have a few questions.

Below are all of my accounts. I would love to close all of the store cards and maybe the Capital One QS. Do you think this will drop my score by a lot? I just hate having a bunch of random accounts open that I do not use. 

12/27/2017 - Discover IT: $3.5K

09/25/2017 - Chase Slate: $3.8K

05/07/2017 - Amex BCE: $20K (This just recently went up from $14.5K)

02/29/2017 - Chase United: $5K

02/17/2016 - Kohls Store Card: $700

11/30/2015 - SYNCB/Amazon Store Card: $2.1K

10/12/2014 - SYNCB/JC Penney: $300

09/03/2015 - Best Buy Store Card: $1K

02/26/2015 - SYNCB/Lumber Liquidators: $1K

06/15/2015 - My Place: $550

05/18/2014 - SYNCB/Speeys: $2K

11/22/2013 - Macy's Store Card: $900

01/13/2013 - Capital One QS: $1K

Thanks in advance for any info provided!

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Closing those accounts won't, in and of itself, hurt your score.

The keys are utilization and aging.

Utilization = total reported balances as percentage of total credit limits. You want to keep that as low as possible. If you can keep your overall utilization low, feel free to close accounts.

Aging = the Capital One account is of value to you because it's your oldest account. If you close it, it will eventually drop off of your credit report. But if you keep it, your oldest account will just keep getting older.

Bottom line is I would keep the Capital One account, and go ahead with slowly dropping the store cards (newest ones first). You might want to do it gradually, to assess how it's affecting your score as things drop off your open account list.

[HeavenOhio]

Try to product-change (PC) the QS1 into a no-fee Quicksilver. If a PC offer isn't available now, try using the card each and every month, and call in to check on offers each and every month. I was able to PC my two former QS1s after 12 or 13 consecutive months of usage. I didn't necessarily charge a lot, and I didn't generally let non-zero statement balances report.

[Anonymous]

I want to apologize to our OP for not realizing that his Cap One card had an annual fee with it.  A $39 annual fee would make a big difference to me personally -- though I am notorious for my general stinginess.

The good news (as Revelate and Heaven suggested) is that with most cards that are ways to do what is called a Product Change to another card that has no annual fee.  Heaven gives you some nice strategy points for how to get it PC'd.

If you can't get that card PC'd after 15 months (or 26 months or whatever) it's worth reconsidering and just closing it.  In ten years from now the difference between a 14 year old "oldest account" and one that is 10 years isn't earth shaking though if one can have the 14 year account without paying any yearly fees it makes a lot of sense to go for it.

[Anonymous]

No worries @CreditGuyInDixie! Next time I will make sure to include that info in my original post. Thank you everyone for all your time helping me understand my situation better. I know so much more now than I did before. I have done a lot of research online about this but when people are able to explain it while using my situation as the example it allows me to understand it much better.

[SouthJamaica]

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@HeavenOhio wrote:

Try to product-change (PC) the QS1 into a no-fee Quicksilver. If a PC offer isn't available now, try using the card each and every month, and call in to check on offers each and every month. I was able to PC my two former QS1s after 12 or 13 consecutive months of usage. I didn't necessarily charge a lot, and I didn't generally let non-zero statement balances report.

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With Capital One you can call customer service and ask "are there any upgrades available on my account?" They will sometimes offer you a product change to a no-fee card.

[Anonymous]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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With Capital One you can call customer service and ask "are there any upgrades available on my account?" They will sometimes offer you a product change to a no-fee card.

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You can also access this "offers" option on your Cap1 online account, too, btw.