credit cards  Why closing an account hurts score  Leslie
McFaddenq_v2.gifDear Credit Card Adviser, In your Jan. 15
article, you indicated a person could lose 50 points on their
credit score because of an account being closed. That very same
thing has happened to me due to WaMu's discontinuation of the
secured credit card program they had. I have worked very hard on
my credit during the past several years, and to see it go down
this much through no action of my own hurts pretty bad. Could
you please explain why this happens? -- Sam Secured
a_v2.gifDear Sam, You're not alone. In this environment, many
people face canceling their credit cards to opt out of negative
account changes, or as in your case, are seeing their accounts
closed by their issuer.  An account closure will never help your
score, but how much impact it makes depends on what is in your
credit report. Barry Paperno, the consumer operations manager at
Fair Isaac, the company that created the FICO score, walked me
through the effect that account c