Closing a credit card down

[SouthJamaica]

Just to remind folks that there's no guarantee a closed account will continue reporting for 10 years.

I had 5 closed accounts which stopped reporting on Equifax within a year of closure.

[Anonymous]

Great point by SouthJ.  What happened to SouthJ is possible, though very rare.  It happened to SouthJ during a time when Equifax was having a lot of crazy stuff happening with their database.

A closed account can also be deleted prematurely (i.e. before the ten year after closing mark) if a person is arguing with the creditor over something on it.  The creditor might get tired of discussing whatever it is the person wants corrected and simply delete it.  That happened to contributor Thomas Thumb.

In general, however, it is solid 98% (-ish) assumption that any account you close will remain on your reports until 120 months after it was closed, give or take a month.  And part of that 2% exception is that the account could stay on the reports longer.

[Anonymous]

As the other folks have suggested, there are always reasons to close and other reasons to keep open. When a given card falls into both camps, you have to balance the two reasons and decide which is stronger.

Reasons to close:

* Dislike the card, would never use it unless you had to, etc.

* Tracking it to prevent fraud is more tiring than it is worth

* Card has an annual or (worse) monthly fee. If you have to buy something that you don't absolutely need once a year to keep it open (common with a store card) consider that an annual fee. Always consider PC-ing a card with an annual fee to a no-AF card before closing.

* Card does not have an Amex, Visa, MC, or Discover logo on it. (Insurance industry penalizes the presence of store cards and gives a heavier penalty still for "auto" accounts, e.g. a Pep Boys or Auto Zone or Firestore card.)

Reasons to keep open:

* Closing the card would bring your total number of open cards to four or less.

* It is quite a bit older than most of your other cards. Example: You have seven cards of ages 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 8, and 9 years. You are considering closing the 8-year old card. Tend to keep it open since it is much older than most of your other cards.

* It has a big credit limit and losing that limit would make you have to do more work to keep your total utilization low.  Remember, however, that big limits do not (in themselves) help your score -- a person can have an 850 score with three cards each of which has a $500 limit.

* You have not yet paid the card's balance to $0.

If a card does not fall into either camp, tend to keep it open, unless you have a ton of cards already. Then do whatever feels best.

[Anonymous]

Do you guys think it will hurt if I close my oldest account? it is 2 tears and 9 months old besides that all my accounts are new being the oldest one 10 months and the newest one 2 months ( 7 in total plus my oldest account)

I want to close it because my oldest account is a wellsfargo credit card that was secured for almost 3 years until two days ago that graduated, but I think it is ridiculous because they kept the 300 dollards deposit as my new credit line (No Credit line increase at all) being my credit sco fico 09 Experian at 770.

Other thing I wanted was product changing to the amex-Wellsfargo propel but I read here that they will likely close the old account and open a new one.

Could you guys advise please?

[Anonymous]

My comments below in blue.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Do you guys think it will hurt if I close my oldest account? it is 2 tears and 9 months old besides that all my accounts are new being the oldest one 10 months and the newest one 2 months ( 7 in total plus my oldest account)

Closing it should not hurt your score in the short or medium term (e.g. as long as the closed account remains on your report, which will likely be for the next ten years).  When it does fall off (ten years from now) your Age of Oldest Account will drop a tiny bit, which might ding your score slightly.

I want to close it because my oldest account is a wellsfargo credit card that was secured for almost 3 years until two days ago that graduated, but I think it is ridiculous because they kept the 300 dollards deposit as my new credit line (No Credit line increase at all) being my credit sco fico 09 Experian at 770.

The word ridiculous may mean that you are a bit angry with the CC issuer, and that closing the card might be a way of getting back at them.  That comes up quite a bit here on the forums and it is a natural feeling.  But in my opinion it is not a good reason to close a card.  The $300 limit is not hurting you at all, only helping (if a tiny bit).  A possible strategy is to keep the card open but only use it to buy a gallon of milk or a tank of gas every 4-5 months.  You may find that WF will give you a credit limit increase in a year, quite possibly with only a soft pull.  See this resource for more details:

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/credit-cards/which-credit-card-companies-do-a-hard-pull-for-a-credit-...

Closing one's oldest card (when it has no annual fee and is not a store card) should be done only after great consideration.  Your default choice should be to keep it open.

Other thing I wanted was product changing to the amex-Wellsfargo propel but I read here that they will likely close the old account and open a new one.

You are right about WF's policies regarding product changes.

Could you guys advise please?

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[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Do you guys think it will hurt if I close my oldest account? it is 2 tears and 9 months old besides that all my accounts are new being the oldest one 10 months and the newest one 2 months ( 7 in total plus my oldest account)

I want to close it because my oldest account is a wellsfargo credit card that was secured for almost 3 years until two days ago that graduated, but I think it is ridiculous because they kept the 300 dollards deposit as my new credit line (No Credit line increase at all) being my credit sco fico 09 Experian at 770.

Other thing I wanted was product changing to the amex-Wellsfargo propel but I read here that they will likely close the old account and open a new one.

Could you guys advise please?

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Yes I do think it hurts to close your oldest card. When it drops off both your "Age of oldest account" factor, and your "Average age of accounts" factor, will get reset.  I would just leave it, use it once in a while for a small purchase, and probably some day WF will increase the credit limit or let you product change it (without losing the continuity). As long as it has no annual fee, I would let it be.