Should I cancel my Credit Card

Where do you get it done?

Have you tried this? Or contact your bank....(probably charge ya)

www.freecreditreport.com

Oh yeah.... FYI - be careful how much personal financial information you post online. This is a public forum and you can never be too safe now-a-days. Especially NOW-a-days!

 

Gotcha..

yea im trying to do the free credit report thing right now..

I use equifax... is the free creidt report going to tell me my actuall score.. For example 700.. or is it just going to break down all my stuff like equifax does

 

Some of this shit is confusing it dont tell me nothin but the name of a bank that i never heard of how am i supposed to know what it is and how to cancel it.. shit two of these ive never used had them for a while.. never charged anything on them

 

Long standing open cards with no balance are better for your credit rating. I'd charge something on it once in a while to keep it open as some companies will close it if it's inactive for too long.

 

Or simply to have them put a "pays as agreed" mark on your credit report.

 

cancel some is no good that you have more that 3 credit cards so is better if only you work with one or 2

 

You usually have to pay to get the FICO score. Beware that freecreditreports.com will sign you up for automatic deductions ($12.95 I believe) from your account for future access so read carefully before you agree. Once service I like is www.creditkeeper.com as they show what does and does not affect your fico score. They also have a what-if scenario generator that tells how adjusting something will affect your score.

One thing that degrades your score is if you use more than 50% of your available credit on a card. If you have two cards, balance them out so that neither card carries more than 50% of the available credit on that card. So for example,

Worse:
Card 1 Limit: $5000 Balance $0 (0% of limit used)
Card 2 Limit: $5000 Balance $3000 (60% of limit used)

is a lower score for your credit than splitting the balance between card one & two, like below:

Better:
Card 1 Limit: $5000 Balance: $1500 (30% of limit used)
Card 2 Limit: $5000 Balance: $1500 (30% of limit used)

Of course you have to balance that out with payment options. So if card 2 has a balance transfer preferred interest rate (e.g. 0% for 15 months vs. 14% for card one), it's probably better to pay off the debt at the lower rate rather than worry about what minor effect it might have on your credit score.

I have a few cards with high credit limits but no balance. A high credit limit with a low balance looks good because it shows you are a responsible borrower. Credit cards with high credit limits (>$5K) also look better than those with lower limits (<$5K).

 

hey, call your accountant...you know, the person who does your taxes!

 

The box doesn't talk back!


Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

LOL!!! Funny. Didn't think of that!
Hey, maybe he doesn't file income taxes!

I am done with this thread!

 

I use the online free military tax thing

 

A lot of well-intentioned responses here, but not all accurate. I was a mortgage loan officer for five years. I've reviewed thousands of credit reports and talked to the repositories on dozens of occasions, plus a few industry training classes.

Don't close old accounts. Old accounts help your score improve by establishing credit history, also called credit depth. Sure, you might see those closed accounts on your credit report for a few years (not forever as someone claimed), but they aren't being used to calculate depth.

Keep your balances to 35% of the revolving credit limit or under. Why 35%? I don't know, but that's the magic number according to the three main repositories (Equifax, Experian, and Transunion). As your balances increase over 35%, the credit score is negatively affected--even if you pay the balance each month.

The number one thing you can do to improve your score is to pay your bills on time. Number two: keep your revolving balances below 35% of the credit limit. Number three: have different types of credit--revolving (credit cards) and installment (auto loans, mortgage, etc.)

Debt to available credit ratio is the least important factor.

Never close old accounts.

Pay off any old collections/charge-offs.

Get a copy of your credit reports annually for free at http://annualcreditreport.com. You'll have to pay each repository to see the scores if you want them, or ask a loan officer to pull your credit if you know one. Review them carefully and dispute any mistakes.

Unknown to most people, scores are actually calculated differently depending on what type of credit you're applying for. Apply for a mortgage and your score will be lower than a car loan. Buy your own score and it will always be higher than any loan officer pulls.

Don't apply for needless credit. Every time you apply for more credit, it negatively affects your score.

ETA: An accountant wouldn't necessarily know anything about credit scores--it's not their job.

 

I just got my Credit Score :711

What is hurting me:

-Short Credit History, Longest account 5 years, average account age 2 years

-Recently looking for credit ( 5 inquires)

-Opened a New Card 7 Months ago.


Cant help short credit history im only 23. As for the other things, I other than buying my truck when i get home i shouldnt be looking for credit anywhere else for a while.

Good Things on my Credit - No Late Payments, Limited Use of Cards 24% of available balance, Recent use of cards(recent purchases and payments made)

 

The Credit score simulator says i can jump my Credit score between 40-60 points if I pay off 90-100% of my Balance over the next 6-12 months.. So I wonder what it would go to if i payed it off in the next 3 months

 

I don't see how this can be good....

So you're saying...if you have a dozen cards on your credit report and they're all OPEN - that's a good thing?

All I know is, when my husband and I went through a pre-approval process for our mortgage, they told us it was better for us to get rid of all the excess cards and close everything that we're not using. The more cards ya have open, the more *debt load* potential there is and it looks bad towards the bottom line (income vs debt load).

Not doubting your claims - but maybe this varies depending on the loan and/or bank/instituation you are applying at?

 

Of course no rule is absolute, and perhaps a dozen open accounts are too many, but I'm sorry to say that your loan officer was full of bull. There is no such calculation as "income vs. debt load" as you defined it.

First of all, the credit repositories have no clue what your income is, nor do they care. They only record/report your credit history.

Mortgage qualifications include debt ratio, which is your monthly debt obligations divided by your gross monthly income. Never once have I heard of calculating someone's potential debt load.

 

To be honest - it's been 15 years or more since we got our mortgage - so things must have changed a lot since then. Because back then, they cared about EVERYTHING. They wanted to know EVERYTHING about your spending and income,etc. And hence the rigors of a pre-approval process also. It's similar to a job interview, they'd get references & check you out thoroughly.

Potential debt load was never a calculation. It's an 'impression' of you. Having a lot of open accounts gives them the impression that you're gonna use them. And that...looks like irresponsibility.

So - things must have changed a lot since then.

 

Absolutely, things have changed a lot in fifteen years. Back then qualifications were all manual, so perhaps they did look at potential debt load. Nowadays it's almost completely automated.

 

Does that make it a little too easy to get loans/mortgages? Makes me wonder how/why our economy is the way it is.... they've loosened up over the years?

 

Not exactly. It's not the automation of mortgage qualification/approval that screwed up the economy. Yes, it was the "loosening" of qualification criteria.

However, what a lot of people don't realize, is that it was not solely the greediness of banks and lending institutions that got us here. Back in the late 70s, Congress chastised banks as being racist because they only lent to higher income families (typically white, and typically credit worthy). The government offered to back riskier loans. Banks, of course, followed through by lending to riskier borrowers.

About four years ago, Republicans noticed discrepancies in Fannie Mae's accounting and tried to impose regulations but the Democrats fought regulation. See this link.

So it wasn't mortgage lenders that messed up the American economy, it was the federal government meddling with free enterprise.