Joint cardmember and new apps

[rkb84]

I have been added to a Chase Slate form a family member dated back to 2000 with 11k and perfect payments, my only current card it a cap 1 secured fairly new since I am rebuilding. Wondering if having that Chase on there will speed the time up that is needed before I am able to get good prime cards with decent credit limits. My 3 FICO's are around 650 currently, and wasn't planning on trying this until I hit 700. I have a paid charge off due to drop in 2014 and satisfied judgement around the same time. Also perfect payment history for the last 2 years on my auto loan, and 5 years on student loan, all other negatives taken care of and removed.

[jsucool76]

Were you added as a joint cardholder or an authorized user? A joint card holder has shared responsibility of any balances on the card, whereas an authorized user is just that, someone who is authorized by the primary cardholder to use it. An AU will report as an AU, whereas (afaik) a joint account holder will just report as an account in there name.


AUs help sometimes, but they can tell that the account is not yours.

[rkb84]

It is actuallty a joint cardmember, does that tend to help more or less? And yeah I guess if they could see that it might not help as much.

[maiden_girl]

I didn't know you could add a joint account holder after the fact...interesting.

[rkb84]

Yeah he added me as an AU at first, at the same time requested I was added an a joint member, they send a form that both of us signed, and mailed back. As soon as this reported my scores shot up around 40 points.

[jsucool76]

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@rkb84 wrote:

It is actuallty a joint cardmember, does that tend to help more or less? And yeah I guess if they could see that it might not help as much.

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It is better (from an underwriting perspective) than an AU, since the account is now under your joint ownership, and will appear as that. From a responsibility perspective, if the account goes into collections or something, you are responsible for the debt.