Ask the Dolans: How will closing a credit card account affect my credit score?
Ken and Daria Dolan, America's First Family of Personal Finance, answer your money questions every Friday.
Click here to ask Ken and Daria your question.
If you've decided to reduce the number of credit cards in your wallet, good for you! But it's not as simple as taking a pair of scissors to plastic. Canceling credit cards can have a major impact on your credit score – and there's plenty of conflicting advice out there over whether it's good or bad.
Time to clear up the confusion! Watch our video below to learn the right way to close out a credit card account and how to keep it from negatively impacting one of your most crucial personal finance assets – your credit score.
Dear Ken and Daria,
Once my credit cards are paid off, will closing those accounts positively or negatively impact my credit score?
-Tanisha
How is your credit these days? Ken and Daria share seven simple steps to improving your credit score, only at Dolans.com.
Click here to ask Ken and Daria your question.
If you've decided to reduce the number of credit cards in your wallet, good for you! But it's not as simple as taking a pair of scissors to plastic. Canceling credit cards can have a major impact on your credit score – and there's plenty of conflicting advice out there over whether it's good or bad.
Time to clear up the confusion! Watch our video below to learn the right way to close out a credit card account and how to keep it from negatively impacting one of your most crucial personal finance assets – your credit score.
Dear Ken and Daria,
Once my credit cards are paid off, will closing those accounts positively or negatively impact my credit score?
-Tanisha
How is your credit these days? Ken and Daria share seven simple steps to improving your credit score, only at Dolans.com.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-27-2009 @ 3:40PM
valencio said...
I will recommend using DesktopBudget.com to manage personal finances. Its the best offline personal finance manager I have seen so far.
Reply
3-04-2009 @ 2:45PM
Mary said...
For 12 years we were HSBC cc customers with a credit limit of $4000 and a zero balance. Rec'd letter, as did many others, yesterday reducing limit to $300. The "explanation" was that it was a business decision, sorry, not personal.
We closed the account. Not personal, HSBC, but your losses posted yesterday and taxpayer bailout money for bad lending decisions caused these taxpayers to bail on you.
Affects our credit score? So what? Credit scores are the biggest consumer scam anyway. Why in the world should we have to pay to know "our" scores? And from three companies no less. We have very good scores, zero credit debt, but cannot refi to a lower rate due to a loss of $140,000 (!!!) of our home equity over the last year thanks to all the bad loans made. The ratio of loan amount to property value necessary to secure a loan stays the same while these companies re-invent their rules to save their own asses.
None of these old systems is going to last. And I'm hoping they go quickly, so that more reasonable minds can reinvent how we conduct business in this country. Long overdue.
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