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Close BOTH cards! The FICO score is nothing but an "I love debt" score. Pay cash and you'll never have to worry about it. You can still get a home loan with a FICO of "0" by using a bank that does manual underwriting.
whoisjongalt is right the credit score deal. I'm up to my eyeballs in debt and my credit score is still above 700. I keep looking for it to go down....but it doesn't....it just hovers around the same score. Granted....it was closer to 800 about 4 years ago.
Haven't you heard that it can drop your FICO score?
Also there is credit history if any of those cards is the oldest you have keep it open for sure.
Now if the OP can't control his spending habits the he should close them.
And also if anyone tries to charge an annual fee then he should close that one.
Any drop to the FICO score is actually pretty minor if you close a card.
"The most important point made by spokesman Craig Watts is that it's a myth that if you close a credit-card account, all trace of it disappears from your credit score. In fact, he says, the credit agencies from which FICO draws information used to calculate your score hold on to payment history for years — the positive stuff for about a decade and the negative stuff usually for seven years. That information is used to calculate two parts of your credit score.
"One is payment history, which accounts for 35% of your score and which reflects, among other things, whether you made your payments on time and whether you welshed on any balance you may have owed when you chopped up your card. Another is length of credit history, accounting for 15% of your score, which reflects whether you're a newcomer to paying people back or not. All that stays, Watts says, if your card goes.
"You've read — perhaps from well-meaning people on FICO's own message boards — that you should never close your oldest credit card because your length-of-credit-history measurement will immediately plummet? Again, that's a myth, says Watts. (Dropping it might affect your credit score a decade from now, he grants, but the impact will be small potatoes compared to that of your credit-related behavior in the interim.)"
I'd cancel the RS card and open up a VISA. They are accepted more widely than AmEx. If you are concerned about the credit history keep the AmEx until you have the VISA a few years, then go to one card (if you wish).
Haven't you heard that it can drop your FICO score?
Also there is credit history if any of those cards is the oldest you have keep it open for sure.
Now if the OP can't control his spending habits the he should close them.
And also if anyone tries to charge an annual fee then he should close that one.
I don't give a crap about any stinking FICO score and never did!
I'm to old fashioned for this flocking FICO game that the banks want to play.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallysmom
If it is too tempting then you shouldn't have credit cards at all..... and lenders stopped thinking that way years ago.
If you can't pay your bills then what the heck do you need credit for?
Lenders now use that flocking FICO 'score" to dig the debt hole deeper for all the fools that buy into FICO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thepinksquid
Do adults seriously lack this willpower to not use a card because it's open??!
I have 2 credit cards that I know don't use because they offer me no benefits--but because I wish to keep my "available" credit as high as possible. Your debt to available credit DOES affect your FICO score.
Seriously people...even if you need to physically destroy/hide your card not to use it, you shouldn't have to close it to not risk "tempting" yourself.
Closing a Credit Card is an act of taking control of YOUR money that banks don't want you to know about. If people listen to the banks then they will be enslaved worrying about the flocking FICO score when they should not.
I have a credit card, several in fact. I guess I have no control over my finances, that bites.
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