Best Buy: Giving credit... where credit is due

Best Buy has snapped up Circuit City's list of store cardholders and welcomed them to the fold. If you're on the list of cardholders who were invited to swap, Dan Ray, editor-in-chief of CreditCards.com, which wrote about the switcheroo, says take the new card and be grateful.

If you didn't get the invitation -- or if you decline to switch, and shut down your card -- chances are you'll take a punch to the ol' FICO score.

You say you never use that card anyway? That's part of the game, Ray says: FICO wants you to use 30% or less of your available credit. Having a store credit card or two in your wallet means you have available credit. When you or the credit-card issuer shuts a card down, your credit ratio changes. Having fewer credit cards means having less credit available, so your debt becomes a higher percentage of your available credit. And that reduces your score. Yes, they get you coming and going.