I'm a newbie so my apologies if these are questions covered elsewhere. I did a whole bunch of shopping for credit cards in the past year and I ended up in a situation where I got a whole bunch of cards but then decided I didn't want them and closed the accounts. Obviously, they all had a zero balance when I closed them. Right now, I have: AMEX - 2 Open cards (1 closed card) VISA - 1 open card (3 closed cards) My limit on the open ones is about $13K. I don't have any balances on any cards (I pay them off at the end of the month), there are no late payments on any cards, there is no past delinquency. My question is this: do the closed cards have any impact on my score? My problem right now is that I'm young and my oldest account is only 2 years old. Do the closed cards count as accounts and bring down my average? The average for my open accounts is about 1.5 years. But if you count in the closed accounts, that average drops down to about .5 years.
Im in the same boat heading on three years of credit history. Definately, keep those accounts open! I personally, would keep them open for a minimum of five years. If you have less than five year credit history, then thats a red flag to ALL creditors that you have "insufficient credit history."
Can you re-open an account you closed? I imagine not, but that's not my problem in any case. My question is, does my credit history count only for open accounts? I have one account I closed recently that is 3 years old -- does that count as giving me a longer credit history?
Re: Re: number of credit cards and score Hi, As I understand it, FICO rewards the age on an account, as well as the length of time that credit line is open, in addition to adhering to the terms of payment on the trade line. Thus, if you open a credit card account, and close it immediately (say within 6 months), you got yourself hurt FICO wise on both counts ... age, and length of history on the account. As your report gets older, the damage due to age factor diminishes (in fact, actually may help even); but the ding due to short history on the account is cemented. In short, yes the 3-year old account will give you history, but will also adversely affect you if you closed it within 6 months of opening the account. If you closed a TL recently, it will hurt you because of increase in your overall utilization ratio, but will benefit you due to age and the length of time the account is open (more than 5 years is optimum, at least 2 years is recommended). -- lakpr
Re: Re: number of credit cards and score Thanks a lot. I wish I knew that when I cancelled three of my credit cards and consolidated the balances onto three other cards. Since my credit is only 3.5 years old the ages of my accounts are thus: AMEX (open) - 8 months AMEX (open) - 1 month VISA (open) - 4 months VISA (closed) - 8 months VISA (closed) - 4 months VISA (closed) - 3.5 yrs But judging by what you're saying in, say, 5 years that really won't matter so much if I don't open any new accounts as the average of accounts will not only grow. That's good to know. In retrospect, I guess I never should have closed my oldest account. Oh well, that's what these sites are for. And I must say it's exciting to learn about credit and monitor your credit record.
