Old Credit Cards: Should I cancel them Discussion Area

H2SO4

There are a few American sites which say that by cancelling a card, your debt to available credit ratio becomes worse, so credit scoring rates you worse.

Is there any equivalent issue here?

danjaq2004

I also am a little confused. I have a number of credit cards, majority are dormant now as I have done balance transfers etc, should they be cancelled or left to one side? My credit worthiness is good but obviously do not want to affect it adversely without knowing!

Thanks.

GeorgeUK

The longer you have a card, them more likely it is that they will increase your limit, but unless they offer BT deals to existing customers - it's just dead credit. I would keep a few thousand spare credit and get rid of the rest that wasn't working for me. Then i could reapply after 6 months to take advantage of the promotional deals again as a new customer. If you have too much credit available, it will at some stage stop you from being offered more.

bathgatebuyer

I'm have another question on this subject - most of my credit cards don't have a brilliant payment history owing to a period of unemployment 2 years ago that lasted for 7 months. In seeking to try and tidy up the mess that was my life a few years ago, I've reduced my debts by about £26K, and wonder whether I should close some of my existing credit cards.

If I close them, does that mean that my payment record is 'frozen' at it's present state, but with the account obviously being mared as settled? Would it better to hold onto them for a bit and allow a better recent payment history to be reflected in the records? i.e. If I close my Halifax card now, in the past 6 months it will show 3 x 1 month late payments, whereas if I hold onto it for another year but don't use it, it would show no arrears in the past year and 12 green blobs (I use Credit Expert - ha ha!).

Would welcome any thoughts on this - is it better to just close them off, or keep them on to try and show a better recent payment history as suggested above?

Marishka

Does anyone know how one can find out what cards one has? sounds weird, I know but I applied for an NCDL one years ago (there was a pretty picture of a dog on it!) and when it arrived it had a maximum spend of £60 and I was so disgusted I shoved it in a drawer and forgot about it then cut it up some years later. This far on I don't have a clue which bank it was on or anything but I never actually cancelled it.

Yoffs_Back

edda wrote: »

Goldfish will not send final confirmation that the credit card has been closed.

Each time I write, all I get is the same computer generated letter (we are sorry etc) which states that the card will be closed 'some time in the future'

edda;4454175 Goldfish have sent me a statment for £41.87 for credit card protection fee 4 months after I had cleared and cancelled my card and have told me they can not refund or cancel due to different legal terms, so you card is still active even if cancelled & cut up. secure hey... help?

Mark440

I've tried to cancel my Halifax One card several time, but they wont close it because i'm in credit by £2!!! They refuse to send me a cheque for the amount and say i have to spend it! I no loknger have the card so this is not possible!
Is it right that they can do that? i'm not too bothered about the money, i just want to cancel the card!
Any advise would by appreciated

CannyJock

Mark440 wrote: »

I've tried to cancel my Halifax One card several time, but they wont close it because i'm in credit by £2!!! They refuse to send me a cheque for the amount and say i have to spend it! I no loknger have the card so this is not possible!
Is it right that they can do that? i'm not too bothered about the money, i just want to cancel the card!
Any advise would by appreciated

Ask them to send you a replacement card. Once you get it, spend exactly the £2.

Sounds crazy and will probably cost them more than just sending you the £2 cheque, but hey ho. I had the same problem with an Amex card years ago.

If you're thinking about closing it anyway, might be worth asking them for a deal on a 0% balance transfer and maybe make some money from them on a stooze? You'll feel a lot better once you've made some money out of them

turbobob

No ones mentioned it but I believe that having dormant credit cards makes you more vulnerable to fraud. You're not going to get regular statements so are you really going to notice if your address gets changed on one of these unused cards and the new card and PIN number goes to someone else?

If you are like me you would not. But they will eventually come after you. The first you will hear about it will probably be the final demands before its passed to a debt collection agency..

Adzyboy

Hiya,
Just registered but been knocking around for a while reading the brill articles on here.

Got a question (well maybe two, but kinda the same). I had/ve two credit cards registered in my name. I applied for a Halifax One Credit Card around july last year. I also got the HBOS Preference Account. Never asked for that one, so just cut it up and threw it away. I never used the Halifax Credit Card, thus after a few months and a letter from Halifax saying my credit limit had been reduced to about £100 I cut it up and threw it.

The problem is, I now need a credit card just to get my car insurance and all that paid for, I could pay it all back no probs within a month or two. Thing is, because of these two credit cards and because I never cancelled them they are affecting my credit score.

I think to cancel the Halifax One card I just need to ring up Halifax and get them to cancel it. The main problem I have is with the HBOS preference account. I know it's with Halifax Bank of Scotland, but I've searched on the Halifax website, the Bank of Scotland website, the Halifax Bank of Scotland website and even some banking website called HBOS PLC. Yet I find absolutely no mention whatsoever of this Preference account.

Soo, I know not who to ring to cancel the card, and even if the damn account still exists (even tho it's right there on my credit report).

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I need this sorted asap so I can get my insurance and tax paid by the end of the month.