Cleared 2300 on a card I had had for nine years, then closed the account because I did not want the temptation. Two weeks later the score is down 19. Everything else is the same, no missed payments ever, one other card and a car loan. I am not applying for anything soon, I just do not understand the mechanism and it is bothering me that the responsible action apparently got punished.
Also worth some perspective: a 19 point wobble is noise unless you are applying for a mortgage within the next couple of months. Scores are a byproduct of behaviour, not a scoreboard to optimise. You removed a temptation you knew was a temptation, which is worth more than 19 points of a number that recovers by itself.
Agreed, with one exception. If a mortgage application is inside about six months, do not close or open anything, full stop. Outside that window this genuinely does not matter.
One more mechanism that catches people: some models mildly ding a profile that reports zero balance across every revolving account, because there is nothing to demonstrate. If you pay everything to zero before the statement cuts, you can see a small dip for that alone. Letting a small balance report and then paying it in full when the statement arrives avoids it. Small effect, but it is real and it surprises people who think zero is always best.
Watched this happen on my own file. Two months of literal zero everywhere and the number sagged slightly, then recovered when I started using one card again.
Closing an account has no effect at all, the drop must be a coincidence from something else reporting.
Politely, no. The limit leaving the file changes utilisation immediately, and that alone accounts for a drop this size on a nine year old card. It is one of the most reproducible effects there is.
@threefund_dana · 6mo ago · 2 replies
Paying it off did not do this. Closing it did, and it did it twice.
First, that card carried a credit limit that counted toward your total available credit. Close it and your total available credit falls, so the same balances elsewhere now represent a higher percentage of what is available to you. Utilisation is one of the heaviest inputs in most scoring models and it recalculates the moment the limit disappears.
Second, a nine year old account is your oldest or close to it, and average age of accounts is another input. Closed accounts do keep reporting for a good while, so that part is delayed rather than immediate, but it is coming.
The usual advice is to keep old cards open with one small recurring charge on them, a streaming subscription or similar, paid automatically in full, so the issuer does not close it for inactivity. If temptation is the real issue, freeze the card, leave it at home, or remove it from your saved payment details, all of which solve that without shrinking your credit profile. Nineteen points recovers on its own in a few months anyway.
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@circadian_cass · 6mo ago
Utilisation makes sense, I had not thought about the limit vanishing. The card is closed now so I suppose I wait it out.
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