Credit Cards

[dhernand10]

Hi All,

        I have a quick question regarding Care Creditline of credit for medical purposes / use. A family member needs me to take outa line of credit for them, because they were unable to qualify on their own,they were denied. I am willing to apply and am pretty sure I will be approved becausemy fico scores are pretty high.

        My questionhould I go ahead and add the family member as a co-signer, since they will bethe one actually making the payments and it will help their credit scores, or shouldI just apply by myself. Will it adversely affect the credit application, since theirscores are not very high? Or will they deny it, if one applicant has good creditand the other doesn’t, vs. one applicant with good credit? Does anyone have experiencewith this?

 Thanks for anyresponses / help in advance!

[lisac]

i have care credit, they will not add my son as an authorized user, so you probably want to make them a co-applicant.  but if you do, make sure you have access to the account online.  so you can make sure the payments are made so you don't get any lates if things go bad. 

i think the advice on this board has been, if you  co-sign, you better be ready to take it over if you have too.

[Itsmeagain]

+1

I too have Care Credit (CC).  I wanted to help my grown daughter who needed dental work badly but has bad credit (another story).  I called CC and they said to go with my daughter to the dentist and apply there; her being the applicant and me as co-applicant.  After considering how I would have to monitor the account, I decided to just loan her the money myself (she isn't very responsible).  But, if you want to, it can be done.  Just don't be surprised at the outcome.  Not many folks have good luck co-signing for someone else.

[haulingthescoreup]

Be sure to get access to the online account (if Care Credit has one) so that you can monitor the payments and step in if necessary. The last thing you need is to get a late payment reporting on your credit because someone else doesn't hold up their end of the bargain.

Alas, most folks with not-so-great credit scores earned them, and there's a reason that they get denied credit. Just realize that there's an awfully good chance that you're going to get stuck with this, so look at it as a gift from the get-go. And like I said, be sure to monitor the payments and be prepared to pay if necessary. It's not worth having your credit get screwed up. (New 30-day late = minus 50 points, boom, just like that.)

[marty56]

Assuming the medical stuff is necessary, I would also look at it as a gift and remember that the realtionship between you and the family member is worth more than you having to take over and make the payments for the famliy member.

If I was in your shoes I would tell the famliy member that this is a gift and if they want to help me pay, fine, if not thats fine too.  That is the only way this could end well.

[dhernand10]

I really appreciate everyone's responses, and now I am seriously reconsidering this because if necessary I could step in make the payments but at a huge burden. Basically, it would be like another car payment for me for the next 18 months, because of the initial amount, ($6000+). Realistically, I'm not willing to look at this as a gift, I can't really, I just took out a mortgage, and I have worked incredibly hard for the last 3 years to get my scores to where they are- Let me just prevent this at the outset- 

Thanks everyone-  

[Itsmeagain]

I think you're making a wise decision . . .