Closing Credit Cards and Your FICO Score

I've been reading conflicting statements about exactly what closing a credit card does to your credit score. For example, one blog stated closing a credit card with a balance hurts your credit score, another blog said it didn't. So, rather than guess around about the true answers, I went straight to the source - FICO. Yesterday, I had a chat with Craig Watts, FICO Public Affairs Director, to talk about a few misconceptions and exaggerations about how your FICO score is affected by closing a credit card. Read Closing Credit Cards Affects Your FICO Score to find out what's true and not true about FICO scores and closed credit cards.