I have too many Visa and Mastercards, I want to get the maximum points I can with my credit scores. Cross Country Bank cl 750 1 year in August First National Bank of Marin cl 500 1 yr August Providian cl 450 1 year in November Orchard Bank 750 cl had only a few weeks Capital One 900 cl 2 years June Capital One 700 cl 1 year in November I am combining the two Cap One cards. Should I do balance transfers on the Marin and Cross Country banks in August and close them out at the one year anniversary? Would my debt ratio improve if I transferred most of the balances from my other cards to one? Most cards are charged pretty close to the limit. Thanks in advance. Samantha
My Experience Believe it or not, but my FICO score was in the 690's with a bunch of C.O.s which should have been reporting as "included in BK" and several open credit accounts which were really closed. In my pursuit to correct my CR, I was able to change the status of the C.O. accounts and close those inaccurate accounts. I don't know if it was because of closing the inaccurately open accounts or changing the charge offs to "included in BK"....but my score dropped to 602. I've seen recommendations to keep your accounts open but maintain a low balance on just a portion of those open accounts. For instance, if you have 5 accounts, only keep 2 with a balance which is "low" (I don't know...less than 20% of the limit???). Bottomline...I think you will take a score hit if you close your accounts. TIA, Ted
CLOSE CROSS COUNTRY AND BANK OF MARIN YOu will save alot in the long run with the fees you have to pay to even keep the accounts open
