The Myth of the Closed Account
One damaging myth that seems to be widely held is that closing old accounts, especially ones with a checkered hsitory, will help raise your score. Couterintuitive as this may be it just flat out is not the case. Age is a very important factor in determining your overall credit score and losing an older tradeline will often do more harm than good. It isn’t unheard of for people to get a negative mark removed only to se their score decrease. In fact I would venture to guess that unless a tradelines comes complete with an annual fee it would be wise to never close any revolving accounts, and certainly not close down ones that are among your oldest.