go to howstuffworks.com and do a search on credit scores.

35% of your credit score is payment history and your ability to pay off debt.

Closing an account wont hurt you. Having a bad payment history will.

 

If you close an account it will eventually drop off your history, hitting that 35% you mentioned. Might as well leave it open and unused until you know you need to close it imo.

 

[QUOTE=Saki GT,Nov 12 2007, 11:27 PM] If you close an account it will eventually drop off your history, hitting that 35% you mentioned.

 

Dont close the card it lowers your available credit which is good to have.

The only bad cards are dept. store credit cards.

 

the rep brought up the AGE of the account is that one factor in credit score is avg credit history.

closing an older account = lowered average

but like said above, despite many people obsessing over their scores, its no big deal. when doing real purchasing (like a house), things like assets, debt:income ratio, etc, come into play

 

How can you say 'closing an account wont hurt you'???

Let's say someone has two cards: 1)Citibank Visa $5000 limit/$0 balance 2)Chase Visa $5000 limit/$4500 balance.

In this scenario, overall utilization is about 45% (4500/10000)....Let's say the Citibank Visa with a $0 balance is closed. Utilization would then be 90% (4500/5000)....Closing that account would kill score in this situation.