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Edited on Sat Aug-14-04 12:05 AM by PeaceProgProsp
your credit rating. This was a CNN-produced story (Fred Katayama (sp?) reporting) on my normally pretty decent unaffiliated local news.
(1) They said don't make frequent inquiries into your credit history because that lowers your rating.
If that's true, it's stupid. Since when would wanting to know your rating hurt you? I believe the truth is that if companies look at your history and then refuse you credit, it hurts your rating. However, it shouldn't hurt your rating if YOU look at your rating (unless, of course, you deny yourself credit as a result, right?).
(2) They said don't cancel credit cards because you lose your built up credit history. They said keep the cards but pay them off.
(3) Then they contradicted this by saying that it takes a long time to improve your credit rating.
If #2 were true, then you could improve your credit rating by canceling your bad cards.
In fact, #2 was a total lie. Last I heard, banks lower your rating if you have a ton of available credit and advice that you get rid of extra cards.
However, banks report the number of card holders to the public, and the higher the number is, the more their stock is worth, so they make it hard for you to cancel your cards. If that number went down, the bank stock would take a pounding on Wall St.
Apparently, the banks are also getting CNN to tell lies for them in an effort to prevent people from canceling their credit cards.
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