Current credit situation.What to do now? 1-Providian-4060 limit opened 04/96- 2-MBNA credit line-10,000.00 limit open 12/99 3-Goodyear-1250.00 limit open 12/99 4-Target-500.00 limit open 12/99 5-Discover platinum 7600.00 limit open 3/2000 6-Citibank plat.select7000.00limitopen 7/2000 7-Citi click plat 5000.00 limit open 10/2000 8-Juniper 10000.00 limit open 12/2000 9-Parisains Dept.700.00 limit 12/2000 10-Next card 2000.00 limit 12/2000 What should I do now?
RE: Need limit experts 1 more Stop. That's enough. Get rid of the Target, Goodyear, and dept. store. Too many accounts will lower your score. The others are 7 good trade lines. You might consider getting rid of the Next Card also.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more I agree. You don't need all those merchant cards anymore. The interest rates are high, and you have enough credit limits on your Visa, Mastercard, and Discover accounts, to cover most any purchase you could ever make at those places. Unless your Providian is a platinum account, I'd drop it too. Still, you might want to think about the Goodyear account. If you use it a lot, and you don't pay off your Visa, Mastercard, and Discover balances every month, it might save you a little money to keep it. I've kept mine all these years because I use it a lot, and I like the 90 days same as cash option. If it's not saving you any money, drop it. You didn't indicate as to whether or not you have a mortgage. In case that's something that's in your future, you might want to consider prioritizing your best cards. You might get a better interest rate if you drop some of your cards. Decide which cards can go first if it comes down to that. Remember that saving fractions of percentage points means saving thousands of dollars.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more DUMP PROVIDIAN TOO LOW...(low credit lines can hurt for getting bigger credit lines)...YOU COULD CALL THEM AND SAY YOU NEED $10,000 CREDIT LINE OR YOU WILL WALK (BUT BE PREPARED TO WALK)!!! MBNA...DISCOVER...JUNIPER...NEXT CARD...KEEP GOODYEAR KEEP (if they have 90 days same as cash (AND YOU WILL USE IT)...if not dump it) TARGET DUMP (credit line too low and they take VISA/MASTERCARD) CITI...CITI (combine to one account...dump the click) PARSONS DEPT STORE DUMP (credit line too low and they take VISA/MASTERCARD???) STOP...STOP...STOP...AFTER YOU DO THE ABOVE (shouldn't need to do any thing else, but maybe play one card against the other FOR HIGHER LIMIT OR LOWER INTEREST RATE???) Interest percent would have helped and what you owe on each card.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more ISN'T ABOUT $41,600 ENOUGH (IF YOU DO WHAT I SUGGESTED AND PROVIDIAN LETS YOU WALK)???
RE: Need limit experts 1 more NEXT CARD IS LOW...BUT THEY ARE EASY TO WORK WITH AND HAVE ON LINE BALANCE TRANSFERS AND THEIR OWN MAIL BOX (SO YOU KNOW THEY WILL RESPOND...USUALLY <48 HOURS.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more One of the factors determining credit score is the number of revolving credit lines. Any number of credit cards higher than 2 reduces your score. Any number of cards higher than 5 *drasticly* reduces your score. Therefore, you need to close 5-8 of your accounts, depending on how high you want your score to go. Do keep ONE department store card. Having one of these is a score asset. Also, it's better to close new tradelines than old ones. Saar
RE: Need limit experts 1 more It depends on what you want. You haven't given enough information, but I would close the lower limits and higher interest rate cards. Exercise your credit to get higher limits and lower rates. It works for me. http://www.creditsense.com
RE: Need limit experts 1 more 3-4-9 CLOSE Keep everything else. I have 22 accounts, haven't seen a Negative impact (SCORE 740) All fairly new utilize and build payment history. As accounts grow older with payment history score will gradually rise. 30% of score is determined on payment history. 35% of score is on total owed, run the cards up score will drop pretty quick.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more 30% is payment history...that is a major flaw, it should be a higher percentage...just my opinion. I have a perfect payment history 22+ years. I also was told I have too much credit??? Years ago before F.I.C.O. credit was given by opinion of the creditor...(THEIR OPINION OF WEATHER YOU WOULD PAY).
RE: Need limit experts 1 more George, Can you tell us what you have? I am just curious because you have 22 years credit. I would like to know from your experience what cards are the best.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more Not GEORGE, but credit is strong enough, no annual fees cards, 9.99% is the best going rate today except for a few banks in Arkansas. Even the best of credit people can be turned down for credit depending on the ISSUER. Many issuers run any where from 9.99% all the way up in the low 20's. For me a 2.9% balance transfer offer for 6-9 months, no fee is the Best at this time, really do not care about the go to rate because this is serving the purpose at this time. Strictly visa, mastercard, american express, and discover, all those other cards are usually high interest. But then again Home Depot sent me a 0% offer for 6 months. By carrying cards for a little while you should know what's a keeper or DUMP it. Just my thoughts.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more PROVIDIAN is the oldest trade line by far. It's a keeper. By having that Providian account with good pay for three years is the reason you obtain the rest of the cards.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more Example - Providian might be a 99 annual fee card with a 27.99% interest rate, or it may be no annual fee with a 9.99%.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more What's your average age on all accounts George? I have one account 19 years myself and many more that are a couple years. Average is only 4 years 11 months. With opening and closing accounts you must take this into consideration also.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more Out of my 22 accounts that I currently have 9 are Online free bill pay which I would not dump any of those because of that one feature. Most all of those accounts are brand new, hold onto for a while and see what kind of deals that might send you. Example, have a Household mastercard, every post I ever read would tell you to trash this card. Yet receive 6 month 3.9% no fee checks quite often.
RE: Need limit experts 1 more First off STOP, then I would probably close numbers 3, 4, 9 and 10. I agree with other to keep your providian since it is the oldest account. But if you close the above then that leaves you with almost 44K in credit limits, that seems like that should be more than enough for anyone. I have seen posters mention they have 20- 30 accounts, I honestly don't know why one would need to have that many accounts?? Also what are your rates on these cards, annual fees?? And are your balances low??
RE: Need limit experts 1 more Saar- I disagree. FICO hasn't made their exact formulas public, so I'm guessing that you're guessing. I've got >22 active trades, and my Beacon score is 748 (and that's with a 6 year old BK)... high enough to get whatever I want. My utilization is 25%, none of the cards is >50%, and my limits range from $5k-$20k on each of my cards (oldest 1987, 2 inquiries in last 6 mos., average age 5.6 years, newest account 8 mos. old). I use my cards for rebate/reward (Macy's Visa, Shell MC, Amex Memb. Rewards) and low intro rate for revolving (2.9/5.9 is lower than my mortgage).
