This come from Nathan Grant from Credit Card Insider in a recent news story:
From KUTV (CBS / Salt Lake City)
Credit Score Improvement Tricks are Often Wrong, Survey Says (Sept 9, 2019)
Nathan Grant with Credit Card Insider says there are a lot of “misconceptions” and “myths that people hear" about ways to improve their scores which are just plain wrong.
Credit Card Insider recently put together a little test, asking people simple yes-or-no questions about whether they think an action will improve their credit score. What they found is there's a lot of bad information out there.
For example, two out of every three people surveyed think income impacts credit scores, 27% of people think using their debit card improves their credit score and three out of ten respondents said they think closing a credit card is good for your credit score — when, in fact, the opposite is often true.
Let's go back to the FICO credit scores. One of the nearly three dozen factors into a FICO score -- the ones used by lenders - is how recent is the newest open account in your credit report? A credit card account opened for 10 years is quite valuable. While a credit card account opened just last month will usually -- not always - lower FICO credit scores (There are some exceptions to this rule). Closing that newly opened credit card that has lowered your FICO scores will do what to those scores after you close that new credit card? FICO scores will increase.
Mr. Grant's statement is incorrect!
If you see your FICO score decline, closing a new credit card that you don't plan on using in the future will raise your FICO scores. If you have questions, refer to MyCreditPlan.org and it will tell you which accounts you can close or need to keep open.
Clink on the link to read the entire story:
https://kutv.com/news/get-gephardt/credit-score-improvement-tricks-are-often-wrong-survey-finds