Cancel Your Unused Credit Cards

MSE_Martin

Just a quick reminder.  If you have unused credit cards, cancel them & close the account.  This does two things

i. it improves your credit score and
ii. It means in roughly 18 months you may qualify for introductory new customer offers on the same card

Of course this doesnt mean close every card, it's always worth keeping one or two back as it gives you emergency access to funds if you should need them.  Also if you have debts on cards, and can't get new credit, make sure you do the Credit Card Shuffle so you're cancelling the right ones and not paying more than is necessary (click here to read about that)

Overall though, ditch unused cards and make sure the account is closed.  

Rochdale_Guy

Yeah, fair enough but look at me and my Barclaycard Gold card saga....

I paid off what I owed, and they owed me £1.16.

So, I phoned them up in November and told them to close my account.

They said it would be done ASAP and I could either give the £1.16 to charity or write it off. I said give it to charity and thought nothing more.

Then I got a December statement and a January statement showing I had a ZERO credit limit but £1.16 in credit still. >:(

When my Feb. statement came last week I hit the roof as they still hadn't closed my account so I phoned them again and this time the guy said he'd have to transfer the £1.16 they owed me into my bank account before he could close my account for good - jeez !

Anyway, check my online banking and the £1.16 has been transferred, so hopefully I won't get a March statement.

Better not do.... >:(

You have to chase everything up nowadays don't you. Nobodies word means anything anymore, sad times we live in eh ?

Aussie

Have just finished 'shuffling' and cancelled a card. Felt so satisfying when asked why was I cancelling my card, to tell them rip off interest rates and no incentives to keep the card ie cash back etc.
Only regret is I didn't have my eyes open sooner! Big thank you to MSE.

Smartasss

Why not keep an 'old' card (even if it's 'dormant')?

You never know when you may need to 'create' a debt!

e.g. a new free balance transfer offer comes along, so you create a debt on an empty card - e.g. use your 'old' Egg card to put a large sum of money into your current account - then transfer that into an interest bearing or saving account. Now use the new free balance transfer to clear the Egg balance back to it's dormant state! 

Instead of Egg in the example, use any other 'old' card's cheque facility to create a large debt (write the cheque to yourself and invest it wisely), then immediately clear the debt by way of the 0% balance transfer to the 'old' card.

circuit

I have an unused Capital One card for that reason. My other card has an ongoing 2-4% balance transfer offer. So I can buy on my dormant card (32% interest!!!!) and do a BT to the other one as soon as I've bought the item. Saves me a bit of money on the monthly payments - I have managed to get more than £700 of my £2000 limit onto a 2-4% rate for 6 months. If you can't get any more cards, IMO this is better than nothing!!

kinster_2

I remember having a similar saga Rochdale_guy but with a HSBC Gold card with 16p...

Smiley_Mum

Bank of Scotland recently sent me a statement for the grand total of 2p. By the time you factor in administration charges etc etc, it would have been cheaper for them to write off the debt, it's not like they can't afford it!!!!

TREVORCOLMAN

I agree fully with Rochdale guy, I am amazed at how many emails I have not even had an answer to. I will not say here what I have said to them subsequently, (well not before the 9pm watershed anyway)!


Trev

>:(

johnllew

I rarely cancel old cards, unless they start charging fees for non-usage. I've had loads of repeat offers from MBNA, Egg, Smile, Cahoot, Lloyds TSB etc. OK some will never make repeat offers but the trouble is you don't know which ones will, so I tend to keep them all!

mr.steve_2

I have an MBNA card (well sort of, when they send me a new card I cut it up and put it in the bin). The credit card cheques they send me are 4.9% for BT's and transactions. I also have a Barclaycard which I've never used. As I'm looking to apply for a BT card and a cashback card to take advantage of the 0% periods, should I cancel these existing accounts or could I utilise them in any way?

johnllew

I have an MBNA card (well sort of, when they send me a new card I cut it up and put it in the bin). The credit card cheques they send me are 4.9% for BT's and transactions. I also have a Barclaycard which I've never used. As I'm looking to apply for a BT card and a cashback card to take advantage of the 0% periods, should I cancel these existing accounts or could I utilise them in any way?

Last week, Mrs JL rang up BC and was given £5000 @ 0% for 5 months straight to our current account. If you don't ask you don't get. Try MBNA as well but they're not likely to be quite so generous - try threatening them with cancelling your card (if you were going to do it anyway - we recently got £41,000 @ 0.9% for 5 months out of them - but they did make a handling charge!).