madpuppy54

I have a story about closing my longest credit line that pulled a fast one on me.

My oldest credit line was jacking up the interest rate and despite asking for a rate reduction, I could not get one. The card company disputed with me that the rates were variable despite my claim that the card was originally issued as a fixed rate card and I had the same rate for a number of years.

This obviously did not make me happy but I went and got my new vehicle first before quickly paying off the card and eventually closing it. My FICO score at the time was a whopping 817 with this card still open and its newly realized, increased, lofty variable rate. Btw its not to see the dealers surprise reaction to such a high FICO score. He acted like I could buy anything on the lot.

Once I closed that evil card, it dropped my score to 792 where it has basically remained, since this card was at least 10 years older than any other card. There didnt seem to be anything I could do to protest their change of my once fixed interest card at 12% to a variable rate card that was starting to climb into the 30% range.

While dumping their greedy card felt good because they dont know how to treat an outstanding customer, it did drop me under 800 and put my average card length at less than 5 years. Moderator, do you have any comments on this one? How much average age credit card age would get my FICO score back above 800?

(Oh btw I have 46k total open line credit on 5 cards currently with $0 debt and the loan on my vehicle has three years left with $27K to go, no late payments)

All of these blanket stab responses come as no surprise to me. You cant just reach into thin air put a trend on an entire states average credit score based on stereotypical culture. All credit scores represent is a span of time monitoring an individuals ability to use credit wisely or not. Individually using credit certainly has nothing to do with political view, especially if you belong to neither party. You can live life just getting by or filthy rich and have an 800 score in either case or a 500 score in either case. If you have to point to a more pertinent demographic, the most relevant factors to FICO and credit score is likely due to age of individual and longevity of their credit history practices.