Authorized Users vs Joint

[Dawn]

Hi all ...

It's been absolutely ages since I've been here, and I am a tad rusty on the current state of affairs. 

There was a point in time when I thought that there was not going to be any advantage to becoming an authorized user on an account, but I still see quite a bit in the way of discussion about authorized users. I did wade through pages of results on authorized users, but still have questions. Is the history reported on the authorized user still being used to calculate the authorized user's credit scores?  Or is it just being reported, but not calculated in the scores?  My apologies if I didn't spend enough time digging through prior posts.

My daughter recently got married.  Her credit is excellent, although I do not know what her scores are.  His credit is not, but just about everything problematic has recently disappeared from his credit reports.

He tried to get a credit card through his credit union with a no-interest for 6 months intro period, to pay for her wedding ring.  However, they only offered him a $1000 line of credit that is not interest free. They have the money to pay for the ring, but wanted to try to get a positive credit history going for him.

My daughter is now contemplating getting a new credit card in her name with him as either joint or an authorized user (fearing that he won't be able to get a credit card anywhere else either).  She has an existing credit card at her credit union, and wanted to keep it separate.

What would the best approach be, as far as getting something going for him, to build his credit but has a no-interest intro period? I can't see paying interest when they could pay for the ring right now.

Edit:  oops .. forgot to mention that they need a balance transfer option to transfer the purchase from her individual credit card to one that he will benefit from as far as building credit history.  Her existing card does not have a no-interest period.

Message Edited by Dawn on 12-21-2009 12:32 PM

[Anonymous]

FICO is still counting AU's in FICO '08 since dropping them from that model ran into opposition from the FTC,

They have been tweaking the algorithm in an attempt to limit the impact for users who have no relationship with the card holder and continue to score AU's who do

How they are going to do that is part of their patented technology I guess,,

I wish them well ,,,

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi stranger! Glad you're back!

Don't have them do joint; just AU. Everything on the AU account counts, just as in the old days.

The more common factors they have (last name, shared address, etc.), the more likely that the account will show up on all three and be counted. Most people are still finding that AU accounts are reported and counted.

Who's the lender? Some never have reported AU's, while others have recently changed.

[Dawn]

Oh dear!  I can't believe that there was a response here and I never saw it.  I haven't logged in for ages!

DD's DH chose to not accept the LOC at his credit union, so they never did anything ... until now.

DD just got approved for a Chase card and asked that he be added as AU.  I realize that she will be able to pull reports in the near future to find out if they matched things up properly, but it makes me nervous.  They don't ask for SS# ... just name???

He has a VERY common name (I actually discouraged my daughter from changing her last name ... but she insisted)  ... I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they do manage to match the two of them up.  I would hate for her good credit history that she will develop to be applied on the wrong person's report.

Is this the norm that they only ask for the name of the authorized user and don't even get the approval of the authorized user?  That's kind of scary!

[ChemGuy]

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@Anonymous wrote:

FICO is still counting AU's in FICO '08 since dropping them from that model ran into opposition from the FTC,

They have been tweaking the algorithm in an attempt to limit the impact for users who have no relationship with the card holder and continue to score AU's who do

How they are going to do that is part of their patented technology I guess,,

I wish them well ,,,

---

By any chance do you or anyone else know of either the news article or board posting that discusses this issue regarding AU's still being included in FICO calculation?  I was pretty sure that was not the case since the change.  Thanks

[fused]

Here is an article from FICO, ChemGuy.

FICO 08 And AUs

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Dawn wrote:

Oh dear!  I can't believe that there was a response here and I never saw it.  I haven't logged in for ages!

DD's DH chose to not accept the LOC at his credit union, so they never did anything ... until now.

DD just got approved for a Chase card and asked that he be added as AU.  I realize that she will be able to pull reports in the near future to find out if they matched things up properly, but it makes me nervous.  They don't ask for SS# ... just name???

He has a VERY common name (I actually discouraged my daughter from changing her last name ... but she insisted)  ... I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they do manage to match the two of them up.  I would hate for her good credit history that she will develop to be applied on the wrong person's report.

Is this the norm that they only ask for the name of the authorized user and don't even get the approval of the authorized user?  That's kind of scary!

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Did she ever have credit while living at your address? If so, they should be able to match up on the basis of home addresses, even if her has changed. I suppose that's one reason why they list former addresses on reports.

When DXH added me to his Discover card (back when he was DH, lol), they didn't ask for my SSN, and they certainly didn't ask me anything. He did it on the phone, and it took about 90 seconds.

And I came off the card in January, but it's still showing on my reports, just not updating, as if it were a closed card. Since it's older than dirt, I'm delighted to have it hanging on, for however long. Shhh...

[Dawn]

Actually ... they have been living together for years, so there should be no problem with them matching up if they do so by address. 

Even though he doesn't have any credit in his own name (have been waiting for the bad stuff to fall off the reports in order to go for it), they have been requesting his credit reports the last few years and have had to have at least one of them mailed to the address they have been living at for a few years ... so they should have current info on him from that.

So ... I guess they may be set for now.  It is still scary though that someone can be added as an authorized user without the authorized user's consent or knowledge.