I have two chase cards. They offered to reduce my interest rate to 6% if I close the accounts. Both accounts are current and have available credit balances. Question I have is will this be detrimental to my credit report if I close these two cc card accounts and take the reduction in interest rates?
Applying for too many CCs or having too many open usually hurts your credit rating... seems to me closing accounts, fully paid, would help your numbers. When I bought a house last year, I was of course buying all kinds of new things for it. Each place I shopped offered me a discount to open a charge account with them. Mostly I took them up on it, but later found out that my credit rating dropped a bit for having too many cards open (between wife and me we had 24!) I even got "credit denied" for a small purchase at Sears... because of having too may cards open. Wife cut back some of her cards... I closed all of mine but one. Haven't checked back to see if my credit numbers improved... mostly because I don't care... don't NEED credit to buy anything, including the house.
Why would they want you to close the accounts? Perhaps you could contact one of the credit reporting bureaus and ask them if closing the two accounts will be detrimental. (Hopefully they would give an intelligible response.) Everyone should have at least one credit card. ...As a side note...Something needs to be done to gain greater control over these so-called credit reporting bureaus. There should only be one.
Nutmeg, you have to calculate (ALL) credit available to you. For example you have closed this 2 cards you are talking about. 1. Do you have other credit cards? How much credit is available to you from this? 2. How much balance is from the 2 cards you close? 3. The % of the credit that is available to you compare to how much you use (your balance), is your personal credit utilization ratio. 4. If you have the high ratio, this will make your FICO go down. For example you have $20,000 credit for you available. And you have already $10,000 in the debt owed. That is you use 50% of the available credit. Is high. To have good credit utilization ratio keep the % to 35 and lower.
Reducing credit available hits your credit score. If you reduced the amount of debt available your credit score will suffer. At the same time personally you get rid of cards you have fewer chances of ID theft. Unless you need to worry about credit scores you rid yourself of as many CC cards as possible. Just me and after 7 years the changes are gone from your record.
Possibly because I haven't used them in months. They called me I didn't call them. I think what prompted the call was on one card the payment was posted one day late incurring the $35 late fee. They add the late fee to the min payment and I just send it in the next payment due date. No biggie, stuff like that happens I just thought it was odd they called me..
Call and ask to have the charge taken off. This is a game and if you don't ask you lose. If you have been on time previously they will take it off immediately. It's money and if you trade you know there is no reason to sacrifice $1 to anyone else beyond what you planned. I have gotten At&t to issue credits every time when I have had issues with service, and have told bakns to stick it up there a$#, and gotten rebates, and refunds for their errors. Never accept, always call and ask, not be rude and an asshole, but be nice, and ask if you have been a good customer, they will work with you. I don't go ballistic if I know I am wrong, but if not be nice and ask. For good customers and people who are reasonable they will work with you.
Thnaks for the info. I was stuck on where and what to google before I posted this thread. you gave me an idea and voila, http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Closing-Credit-Cards/td-p/347190 ------------ Thankks for the replies everyone. Now I just have to figure out if I want to do this or not. Sounds tempting on the reduced interest rate, though.