After a long climb from subprime slime, I dumped Orchard--an eight year old account at 15.9 with a $20 annual fee. The only thing retention offered was a $500 CL increase on the 5K card with no benefits. The last increase was more than 3 years ago. She said the APR couldn't go any lower. Not much of a deal. Now I have left: Citibank 18.5K at 8.15; Citibank 10.4K at 9.24; ATT 9.2K at 10.24 and MBNA 20.1K at 9.99. My score may take a hit for this but bookkeeping just got simpler.
Dumping subprime cards is fun. I've already closed a subprime account to avoid unjustified "repricing," and it felt really good. They'll never collect merchant fees on my purchases again.
I zm feeling both of you..I have closed 7 or 8 cards over the last couple months and it does feel good. I am down to 3 credit cards: Chase-$3,300 Fleet Platinum Business - $5,000 Credit Union - $10,000 Oh yeah..and diners who have 2 lates on my Equifax report that will not go away.
It was a great feeling when I started dumping the subprimes. No more household and capitol one. Now I have Chase Continental World: 7K Bank of America Plat: 12.5K Now its time to sit back and monitor my credit reports. I vowed to never let the above cards go above 30% utilization.
My scores have not been affected. Also keep in mind that it may take months for all the credit card companies to actually update the bureaus so it kind of spreads the closures out over time.
