store credit card hurts credit?

Welcome Anne.

Canceling a store credit card will affect your credit to some extent but these are very high interest rate credit card. So you can cancel if you cannot afford it.

store credit cards are still credit cards. if the bureaus think that you are abusing them they will react in a negative way. best thing to do is to try to keep your cards at 50% or lower of the available credit and make the payments on time of course. all cards hurt credit if they are "abused".

a lot of credit cards are notorious for removing the tradeline history when the account is closed/cancelled.

I had a borrower who was very upset with a credit card company for trying to tack on fees. He paid the card off, and close the account.
The credit card company removed the history from his credit report.
He took a huge hit in his credit score as the history was at least 10yrs.

I agree the biggest negative will be if it has history that is needed

B

Definitely do not cancel any credit card. It always lowers the credit score. With credit you are rewarded for “managing” your credit card balances.

In other words like John said keep the balance between 30 to 50% of max. Then pay it off over three months this really strengths your credit score.


Hope this helps.

These guys have given you some good advice, keeping the card open reflects good on your report as long as you make the payments on time and keep it below the 30% balance, silly as it sounds, that is part of your credit score, debt/income ratio. It shows your credit worthiness and that you are responsible enough to pay your bills on time and make more than the minimum amount. you will want to do this over a period of time also to build up some good payment history. goodluck, hope these posts have helped you make a wise decision.

Thanks Cliff...you beat me to it. I agree though, I would not cancel any cards, and pay it off over 3 months like you stated.