Avoid balance chasing

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-06-2009
Avoid balance chasing
5
Thu, 06-25-2009 - 10:58am
I have huge credit card debt over several cards with rates from 0% to 33%. I can pay off a significant part of it, but I want to make sure they don't reduce may balances or close the accounts when I pay off large amounts. Any advice please.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2006
Thu, 06-25-2009 - 4:07pm

I am not sure they can close your accounts without a request from you (unless the accounts are past due).


My question is why don't you want to close the cards as you pay them off?

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-17-2007
Thu, 06-25-2009 - 5:33pm

I have two accounts with one credit card company called Union. We have had the cards since 1990 always in good standing. One I had not used for a couple of years. That one

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-06-2009
Fri, 06-26-2009 - 8:19am
Yes, I understand that for a higher credit rating, I want to have as much credit available as possible and as small balances as possible. So I do not want to close those cards, or have the available balances reduced. (Of course then I should not just fill them back up). I guess I will just pay off the high interest rate cards and see what happens.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-10-2003
Fri, 06-26-2009 - 8:43am

I am not sure I am any help as I am from Canada and not the US, but from the Cnd perspective it really wouldn't matter that much UNLESS you paid off a ton of money really fast and the CC's ALL lowered/ Cancelled


Bex -

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-25-2009
Fri, 06-26-2009 - 10:33am

I firmly believe ultimately a person's overall income vs. debt ratio matters a lot more than the available credit vs. debt ratio. Income is real purchasing power; available credit is the extent a person can get into trouble! ;-)

You cannot really predict or control what the credit card companies do, but you could focus on paying off the cards starting with the one with highest interest rate. As to closing out accounts, I have done it many times, just to simplify record keeping and it did not seem to hurt my scores that much (around 800). And after having a near miss with identify theft, I really do not want too may open accounts floating around.