Originally Posted by
RedSun
The other important factors are payment history and number of accounts that have balance. I sometimes have 15 CCs that have balance (reward spending etc). I do see the complaints from CBs.
From my own experience, closing a CC with a low credit line has no or little impact to FICO score. But if I close a CC with $35,000 CL, it should result in a rise in credit utilization and drop your FICO.
I think few here would let 15 accounts carry a balance. Closing an account (either at the consumer's request or by issuer) should have zero net impact if you're not carrying a balance. A closed account will typically remain on one's credit reports for 10 years, so by the time the account falls off of the reports there will usually be minimal impact due to average age of accounts or longest account age.