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I'm buying a new $3,000 fridge from Best Buy and during the check-out, I was offered the opportunity to apply for a store card in exchange for a 10% discount "on first day of purchases". I took the bait thinking hey, $300 might be worth the hassle.

Well, well. It turns out I definitely can't use the card "on first day of purchases" and pocket the $300 because... the card limit is only $1,000! Less than the amount of the purchase I'm about to make.

My question now is, what's the most efficient, seamless way to cancel this card, that'll have the least impact on my credit history? The card is issued by Citi and probably hasn't been fully issued yet. Is there a way to stop the issuance process in its tracks? Should I just keep it even though I'll never use it?

Alex R
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If you don’t want it, just cancel the card.

The damage to your credit score has already been done when you applied, because of the credit inquiry. This probably didn’t affect your score much. When you cancel this card, every other factor (credit history, credit utilization, etc.) will be exactly the same as it was before you got the card.

Ben Miller
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  • And OP can't dispute the hard inquiry because they did, in fact, apply for the card. It's no different than if they had applied and got denied (effectively a $0 credit limit). – stannius Jun 22 '20 at 22:06