Rant: People keep closing their oldest credit card and tanking their score

I used to think closing a card you don't use was smart. My buddy in Phoenix did it, dropped his score 40 points. His average account age went from 8 years to 3 overnight. That length of credit history is a huge chunk of your FICO score. Anyone else seen this happen after closing an account?

4 comments

4 Comments

sarahf991mo ago

Wait, his score dropped FORTY points just from closing one card? That's insane. I knew it hurt your score but that's like a huge crash. It's crazy that doing something that feels right, like cleaning up old accounts, can backfire that hard. The whole system feels backwards sometimes.

robert_scott571mo ago

Yeah, that's the exact trap. The system punishes you for being responsible with old cards. Seen it happen to a few people at work.

spencer_park261mo ago

Totally get that. I had an old card closed on me after years of no use, and it messed up my credit age. What I do now is put one tiny recurring charge on each old card, like a streaming service, and set it to auto-pay. That way the bank sees activity and keeps it open, but I don't have to actually remember to use it. It's a dumb game, but you gotta play it.

miller.rowan21d ago

My local library started charging late fees again after dropping them for years. They said it was to encourage returns, but really it just made people stop borrowing books. It's the same kind of backwards rule, where the fix makes the problem worse. You end up gaming the system just to live your life, whether it's a credit card or a library book.