I signed up for an American Express preferred Blue card and got approved for a limit of $25,000. I have a 830 credit score. I realized that the places I shop don’t accept that card and you have to pay for it yearly so I canceled it.
Then I decided I was going to get a Costco Visa. Once I signed up the credit limit was only $5,000. So I canceled that one. So I stupidly signed up for a Wells Fargo Visa and that was $4,000.
Don’t leave yet and please don’t make fun of me but I’m not done being stupid. I decided I wanted a different American Express card and when I signed up for it the credit limit was $2,000 so I canceled that one.
Again I know I’m fucking stupid but how bad did I just fuck up my credit?
Okay, after rereading I’m starting to feel like there’s something fishy about OPs story that they’re not telling us. Why was the limit so important? 25k is well more than enough for the first. Take them at their word, they couldn’t use it so they got the second. 10k. That is still more than I have ever put on my card. So why is the limit so important.
It could be pure naivety.
Or, was OP trying to do one of those scams that landed a lot of people in trouble (see: jail)? I believe it was something like you do the check pulls against one card and use it to pay off another, but the scheme depends on each card having the same or higher value. Did OP attempt one of these, and then get desperate when each one was a lesser amount?
Either way. As I said in another comment it’s a life lesson for OP. If it was pure naivety then congrats, now you know the hard way. If it was something worse, then lesson learned that there are no money “hacks”. Only quick ways to be caught. (And trust me, the last hack was discovered within days and the people tracked down, and I think you just witnessed them closing the “loophole”). You don’t fuck with the bank’s money.
This is completely legal and very common, in the US at least, I don’t know why people think it’s some shady thing. It’s called a balance transfer and credit card companies actually advertise low teaser rates for doing it. They want you to do it.
They usually have a different interest rate specifically for balance transfers. They’ll give you a month or two of no interest and then your normal spending will start accruing normal interest, but the transferred balance will accrue interest at some ridiculous rate
It’s usually 12 months or longer.
Whether its 12 months of grace or 12 seconds, the interest rate that comes after the grace period is still scalping
Not so much the case anymore. 10 years ago yeah, but recently most cards won’t charge back interest. Interest going forward is horrendous though, so yes definitely have a plan to pay it off beforehand.
I am redoing my patio and it’s expensive. I want to earn points. I’m going to immediately pay it off, but it’s free money that way.
Split it into multiple credit cards. I had a similarly very large expense recently, and I have 3 credit cards. I asked each for a credit limit increase, and took what I could get (none of them gave me what I requested, but all of them gave me some increase). Then I split the cost over all 3 cards.