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Will removing my wife as an authorize user on a credit card help her credit score?

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Monkeygirl531
Established Member

Will removing my wife as an authorize user on a credit card help her credit score?

I have a credit card with a 20K balance on a 22k limit credit card and I'm the primary cardholder while my wife is listed as an authorized user (not a joint account holder). This debt now shows up on both of our credit reports even though technically the debt is all mine. But this is hurting her credit score since she does not have many accounts on her credit profile and 20K looks very bad on her credit report. So my question is if I remove her as an authorized user, will the 20K debt dissapear from her credit report thus she will have 0 debt on her credit report. Thanks!
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DI
Super Contributor

Re: Will removing my wife as an authorize user on a credit card help her credit score?


@Monkeygirl531 wrote:
I have a credit card with a 20K balance on a 22k limit credit card and I'm the primary cardholder while my wife is listed as an authorized user (not a joint account holder). This debt now shows up on both of our credit reports even though technically the debt is all mine. But this is hurting her credit score since she does not have many accounts on her credit profile and 20K looks very bad on her credit report. So my question is if I remove her as an authorized user, will the 20K debt dissapear from her credit report thus she will have 0 debt on her credit report. Thanks!

It depends.

 

1.  If your wife's credit reports isn't dependent on the age of the AU account it won't decrease her FICO scores.

2.  If your wife's credit reports is dependent on the age of the AU account and it's removed it will decrease her FICO scores.

3.  Depending how you answer 1 and 2,  removing the AU account will certainly decrease her debt to credit ratio.  That will increase her scores.  

 

Remember:

 

  • 35% of the score is determined by payment histories on your credit accounts, with recent history weighted a bit more heavily than the distant past;
  • 30% is based upon the amount of debt you have outstanding with all creditors;
  • 15% is produced on the basis of how long you've been a credit user (a longer history is better if you've always made timely payments);
  • 10% is comprised of very recent history, based on your efforts to obtain loans or credit lines in the past few months;
  • 10% is calculated from the mix of credit you hold, including installment loans (like car loans), leases, mortgages, credit cards, etc.
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Jazzzy
Valued Contributor

Re: Will removing my wife as an authorize user on a credit card help her credit score?

I think without question that you should remove her from your card. This high utilization percentage is going to hurt her way more than the age of the account could help her. You can always put her back on later.

 

What type of card is this? The only type I've had to work a bit to get an AU off is AmEx. That one took a couple of phone calls. They ended the AU relationship, but they continued to report (and, therefore, TU continued to count the balance). It took a 2nd phone call to get it gone for good, and I won't know that for sure until I pull new reports. After you have her removed, wait until the next statement reports and pull a new report to know for sure that it is gone.

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