How much negative impact does a "Closed by Grantor" comment have on your account if it shows zero balance and perfect payments?
It really doesn't have much of an impact. That reason for closure is not factored into credit scoring, only the rating on the account. There can be many legitimate reasons why the account was closed through no fault of the account holder such as: not using the account for a certain period of time; you moved and they mailed you a new card and it came back to them; the account being sold or transferred; the creditor no longer offering that type of credit (Remember when Arco got rid of their credit cards?). I've had a couple of those and if you dispute them with the CRA they will generally just change to notation to "Account Closed by Consumer.", especially if it's R1.
But do you really need to dispute it? You answered my question though...I suspected that any closure buy the grantor, including "normal reasons" would generate that comment. And the fact that it doesn't get used in scoring is the bottom line.
Once an account is closed and the balance is zero, the creditor typically stop reporting on it, so that status will remain as it was last reported. Actually, if it's a couple of years old, you can probably get the entire account removed from your credit report by disputing it. Most creditors typically don't keep on-line records of closed, paid off accounts with no derogatory information associated with them. Even if it has had a couple of "Was 30s", they still might not have it online. Since there is no economic benefit to them to go through the cost and effort of dredging the archives (getting a computer tape delivered from an off-site location) they typically will tell the CRA there's "no such account" and it will disappear.
