While completing Black Friday shopping, and seeing beautiful tree turning yellow because of Autumn season during past Thanksgiving week, I discovered that my elder parents have many more credit cards than they would like. Most often because they did not know that sometimes a membership ID card is the same as credit card.
Why Would Many Credit Cards Matter?
- Each approved credit card increases the card holder financial liability, decreases the size of credit pool that the card holder would need when applying for new credit cards.
- Some credit cards, such as from non-well-known banks or companies, are regarded as high-risk cards which would negatively affect the card holder's FICO score.
- No need to keep the cards if not planning to use it anymore.
I called to cancel their credit cards of Home Depot, Firestone, Kohls, Sears, JCPenny, Target.
Request Free Credit Reports
- Each person is entitled to receive a free credit report each from Experian, Equifax, TransUnion over a period of 12 months.
- Official website is Annual Credit Report.com to receive your credit report online
- These free credit report does not include FICO score. The FICO score report currently costs $7.99 each
I am only interested in what credit cards my parents hold, not their FICO score, so the free reports are sufficient.
How to Repair or Improve Your Credits
- Official Government Guideline: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre13.shtm
- Pay property tax, utility bills on-time
- Hold at most 3 credit cards from well-known banks or issuers like Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, American Express
- Do not cancel your oldest bank account, as long bank account history increases "average credit time"
- Call customer care to lower your card credit limit, if not needed.
- At least 2 years working in the current employer
Chase is a U.S bank with excellent reputation, issues several popular reward credit cards such as Chase Sapphire Preferred, United Airline, Southwest. I recently opened a Chase Total Checking because of Chase Checking Bonus promotion and started using its free online bill pay service.
I studied multiple real-estate courses and used to hold house mortgage and life insurance licenses as a hobby job, because my first mortgage and home agent was not able to answer many questions. Then I decided to secure my own license and understand the home finance business.
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