I have never heard of that - I have actually heard the opposite. Keeping credit card accounts open with zero balances hurts your credit more than closing those accounts out. I have looked at my credit report and I have gotten this message "too many revolving line of credit accounts open" and that was back when I had zero balances.
i think it may have to do with how many CC's you have. if you're getting a line like "too many revolving lines of credit" i'm assuming you've got more than 3 or 4. or maybe i just misheard Suze Orman.
My wife has a problem with one of her cards using the online service. She has a Linens N' Things card. It's due like on the 24th of each month. If you try to pay online, they send you to a third party billing company called CheckFree or something like that. Anyway, Linens N' Things says that you should pay two days before the due date at least. So, my wife pays five days before the due date, and, for whatever reason, they don't process it in time and charge her a late fee. The next month, she pays nine days in advance, they don't process it in time and charge her a late fee. Finally, she pays the day the new bill is posted, which is something like 15 days in advance. They don't process it in time and she's charged a late fee. So, apparently, it's impossible to pay a Linens N' Things credit card on time. You can't pay it earlier than the bill posting because the payment is then credited to the previous month and you're still required to make a payment for the current month. If you pay on the day the bill is posted, it's still late and you pay a late fee. It's a heck of a scam, really. At $29 a pop, the late fees can really add up. She only had like $200 on the card, but with the late fees, she ended up having to pay a total of something like $350 to pay it off.
^ The online payment doesn't always seem to be as much of a time or money saver as its made out to be since in many cases they charge for the service or like your story shows it goes through a third party. Call me paranoid but I just feel more comfortable sending in a check because at least if something goes wrong I have the record of the check to contest it.
^^^^^^^ Yep, you have to be careful with some of the smaller credit card companies because they use 3rd parties for their online billing. And they charge a fee. Kind of defeats the purpose of paying online when they don't get your payment in on time, which they never do. Capital One, which I use, will post your payment the next business day if you pay before 3pm. If not, it will be the business day after that. And it's free. Couldn't be more convenient.
I only write checks to pay bills when I have to. I have had no problem with paying most of my bills including CC bills online for several years now. The companies that uses third party billing are either small business or they are try get more money from you. You should never use CC company that uses third party billing.
