My brother told me to close my oldest credit card after paying it off

He said it would help my score by getting rid of the old debt. I closed a card I'd had for 8 years last January. My score dropped 40 points almost right away because my average account age got cut in half. I'm still trying to build it back up. Has anyone else had a score drop from closing an old account, and how long did it take to recover?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_thomas2d ago

That 40 point drop is brutal but makes total sense. What was the credit limit on that card you closed? Losing that available credit probably hurt your utilization ratio too.

miaprice2d ago

Ugh, tell me about it, it was a huge limit too.

morgan_stone332d ago

Man, that is such a classic piece of bad advice that gets passed around. Closing your oldest card is almost always going to hurt your score for exactly the reasons you found out. It tanks your average age and can mess up your credit use if it had a high limit. Really sorry you're dealing with that rebuild, it feels like it takes forever to climb back from a hit like that.