Is It Difficult To Cancel My Credit Card?

June 18th, 2010

Many people never actually bother to cancel a credit card, even though they may not have used it for many years.

If this happens, the credit card company itself may actually refuse to renew your card when it expires, or they may even send you a letter before the expiry date to tell you they are closing your account.

However, your account must have been totally dormant for quite some time for a credit card provider to force a credit card cancellation themselves. Credit card companies hate losing customers, and they will normally put a lot of pressure on customers to stay with them, which can end up with the above-mentioned situation where the customer simply puts their card away in a drawer until it expires and a credit card cancellation happens automatically.

Having a lot of credit cards is not a good idea, but it is an easy situation to find yourself in with all the great offers that are thrown at you almost every week. Your credit score can be damaged by having too many credit cards because you are using up a good part of the available credit limit afforded to you by your income level. It can also look like you are attempting to create a large pool of ready credit, which may suggest you are in financial difficulties or about to be so.

If you do decide to cancel a credit card because you don’t use it any more or because you wish to use one from a rival company with better terms and rates, then you must be strong. The adviser you speak to will make you feel like you are breaking up a precious long-term relationship and you’ll only regret it later on. It’s very easy to end the call with your card still active.

Apart from being determined, this is the process you must follow to complete a credit card cancellation:

How to cancel a credit card

Pay off your credit card balance in full – card providers may raise the interest rate on an unpaid balance after a cancel request has been received if an introductory offer was in operation.
Contact the appropriate customer service centre and tell them you wish to cancel.
Ignore the sobbing pleas of the customer service representative – they’ll get over it.
Ask them to put a note on the system saying that you have cancelled.
Send them a letter confirming your wish to go ahead with the credit card cancellation, and ask them to confirm receipt of your letter.
If you do still have a balance left to pay off, your card can be cancelled but your account will not be closed until the debt is cleared.
Cut up your credit card into small pieces, destroying important account information and cutting through the chip several times.
Send the pieces to the bullying customer representative (optional but funny).