Re: Capital One Secured Card Graduating to Unsecured

February 26, 2012 at 11:14 pm #2667

Participant

Hi Melanie. and congrats on your new Chase Freedom card.

According to what I’ve read, you need to follow a few simple steps to make sure you close your credit card account with the least damage possible to your credit score.

– First of all pay your balance in full.

– Try to have a 0 balance in your other cards as well: “To close card accounts without impacting one’s credit score, you need only have zero balances on your credit report for all of your active credit cards. That’s because if you have zero balances your credit utilization rate is therefore zero, and you can’t raise it — and potentially hurt your score — by closing one or more of the active card accounts.”

– Call the bank to cancel the card.

– Write a letter to the bank requesting a confirmation letter of the closure. “Also, state that you want your credit report to reflect that the account was “closed at the consumer’s request.”

– Check your credit report to confirm everything went as planned.

Also, closing a credit card might affect everybody in a different way. “The time an account has been open is a factor in credit scores. A longer positive history is beneficial to credit scores. So, closing an older account in theory could have a more negative impact.”