I have a Shell gas card that I closed after 12 months when they wanted to charge me an annual fee. Hoewver, I only started using it 4 months ago and have 4 positive months of "current" TL's. I have a balance of $180 on it. My questions- 1. Is it better to just pay off the card because FICO score will look worse if you have a closed account with balance? 2. Is it better to just string the payments out for another 8 months or so so I'll have 12 months of activity on the card, so it will be a good TL? 3. After 8 months from now when the balance is fully paid, do lenders/FICO scoring look at the difference in time between when the account is closed vs. when it was paid off? I.e. is there a penalty for having an account closed 3/03 but with activity until 11/03, or woudl be a *good* thing?
Won't make that much difference...I would pay it off A.S.A.P. and then close it...if you can't pay it off in full before the annual fee would kick-in...CLOSE IT FIRST!!!
I already closed it and did not have to pay the annual fee. (They subtracted it from my total.) On my CR, it shows something like $200 credit limit/ $229 high when they added the annual fee in (my balance was around the limit at the time). So the account is already closed, and I can pay it off immediately if I want to. My question is, with only 4 months of payments so far on my TL, is it better off to stretch out the payments so I have a year's worth of "currents" on my TL, or would it hurt my score to have an account closed on 4/03 but not paid off until 11/03. The same goes for FCNB. My FCNB CC and Spiegels cards are both closed now. Should I pay it off immediately b/c scores will be worse if payments are made after an account is closed? Or does the time when an account is closed in relation to when last payment was doesn't matter, as long as there are no lates? If so, I could stretch out my Shell card for awhile by paying the minimum and get a nice 2yr tradeline, even though the account was closed last month!
