Friday, June 12, 2020

Old Credit

There was a letter in the mail, today, informing me that an old credit card of mine had been cancelled, due to inactivity. The account has been open for 25 years. No warning or reminders to use the card... just cut it off.

It doesn't bother me to not have the card anymore; I haven't used it in years, anyway. What's messed up is that having an account closed can drop your credit score several points. For not abusing credit, I'm going to be punished.

Really, that's the only reason I kept the card open. Over the phone, Regions Bank, who had inherited the account many years ago from Union Planters, told me they wanted me to reapply, which is probably some sort of bookkeeping scheme to make it look like they're getting more new applications. New applications drop your score even more, double punishing me for not using credit, so I disappointed them.

I keep my score above 800. I don't know why. I never use, or need to use, credit. I guess I keep it up just in case something happens and I need it... Just like the reason I had that card for a quarter of a century.