Authorized User Question

[ArchEagleJ]

I am currently considering adding my mother as an authorized user to one or more of my credit cards.  My mom has had a pretty bad credit history up until this point but has finally started really working on getting her credit fixed over the past 6 months or so.  She currently has no open accounts at all and her scores are very low (I'm not sure the actual number but I would guess lower 500s)  I was wanting to help her out a little by possibly adding her as an AU to a couple of my cards.  I have decent credit (mid to upper 600s) with no lates and all of my past derogs have been paid.  I was just wanting to make sure that adding her as an AU would positively effect her score and would not negatively effect my score.  I don't intend to actually give her access to the card itself, just to be added so that she is able to use that to improve her score a little as she works to clear up her own past. 

Any input?

[crosbyk1]

I am not a credit guru on this board. But I would only recommend adding AU to a account with clean history and very low utilization. Just my 2 cents!

[Jazzzy]

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@ArchEagleJ wrote:

I am currently considering adding my mother as an authorized user to one or more of my credit cards.  My mom has had a pretty bad credit history up until this point but has finally started really working on getting her credit fixed over the past 6 months or so.  She currently has no open accounts at all and her scores are very low (I'm not sure the actual number but I would guess lower 500s)  I was wanting to help her out a little by possibly adding her as an AU to a couple of my cards.  I have decent credit (mid to upper 600s) with no lates and all of my past derogs have been paid.  I was just wanting to make sure that adding her as an AU would positively effect her score and would not negatively effect my score.  I don't intend to actually give her access to the card itself, just to be added so that she is able to use that to improve her score a little as she works to clear up her own past. 

Any input?

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Hi...with the background you gave us, it seems to be an OK idea to add your mom as an AU. Most cards report AUs. Some don't...so you may want to check with your cc companies when you ask for your mom to be added. They may ask you for her ss number.

My son had my husband and I on his AmEx as AUs for many years. It reported on my husband's reports, but did not report on mine. Don't know why.

This should help her credit. The risk is if you decide to overspend and max out your credit cards. Then it would hurt her. If that won't happen...go for it.

[creditwherecreditisdue]

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@LynetteM wrote:

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@ArchEagleJ wrote:

I am currently considering adding my mother as an authorized user to one or more of my credit cards.  My mom has had a pretty bad credit history up until this point but has finally started really working on getting her credit fixed over the past 6 months or so.  She currently has no open accounts at all and her scores are very low (I'm not sure the actual number but I would guess lower 500s)  I was wanting to help her out a little by possibly adding her as an AU to a couple of my cards.  I have decent credit (mid to upper 600s) with no lates and all of my past derogs have been paid.  I was just wanting to make sure that adding her as an AU would positively effect her score and would not negatively effect my score.  I don't intend to actually give her access to the card itself, just to be added so that she is able to use that to improve her score a little as she works to clear up her own past. 

Any input?

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Hi...with the background you gave us, it seems to be an OK idea to add your mom as an AU. Most cards report AUs. Some don't...so you may want to check with your cc companies when you ask for your mom to be added. They may ask you for her ss number.

My son had my husband and I on his AmEx as AUs for many years. It reported on my husband's reports, but did not report on mine. Don't know why.

This should help her credit. The risk is if you decide to overspend and max out your credit cards. Then it would hurt her. If that won't happen...go for it.

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There are two main reasons to add AU's - Age and UTIL. Unless your account has significant age or a large CL and you PIF and report zeroes you probably won't be adding much. If someone was to offer to add me to their card as AU I would pass it up unless I knew the account had a $10K+ CL, was going to report zero and was 20+ years old.

[Jazzzy]

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@creditwherecreditisdue wrote:

There are two main reasons to add AU's - Age and UTIL. Unless your account has significant age or a large CL and you PIF and report zeroes you probably won't be adding much. If someone was to offer to add me to their card as AU I would pass it up unless I knew the account had a $10K+ CL, was going to report zero and was 20+ years old.

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Hi CWCID... I understand totally your criteria for not wanting AU status that isn't going to help you. We recently removed ourselves from our son's card as well. He has excellent credit, but doesn't PIF his AmEx gold card until after the statement drops. We didn't want that impact on our util.

In the OP's case, his mom has no open credit lines. Showing some open credit lines, I believe, may trump the fact that it may or may not lower her AAoA.

Do you think it may be worth it in order to show open credit lines?

[creditwherecreditisdue]

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@LynetteM wrote:

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@creditwherecreditisdue wrote:

There are two main reasons to add AU's - Age and UTIL. Unless your account has significant age or a large CL and you PIF and report zeroes you probably won't be adding much. If someone was to offer to add me to their card as AU I would pass it up unless I knew the account had a $10K+ CL, was going to report zero and was 20+ years old.

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Hi CWCID... I understand totally your criteria for not wanting AU status that isn't going to help you. We recently removed ourselves from our son's card as well. He has excellent credit, but doesn't PIF his AmEx gold card until after the statement drops. We didn't want that impact on our util.

In the OP's case, his mom has no open credit lines. Showing some open credit lines, I believe, may trump the fact that it may or may not lower her AAoA.

Do you think it may be worth it in order to show open credit lines?

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I really don't know how much having your only open CC's being AU's is going to help. We'd have to get into the rest of the details of the CBR and what the goal is.