Added as an Authorized User and my score dropped! How come?

[Funkenstein]

First I want to say I am new here, and have been lurking for a while and have received invaluable information towards my efforts to repair my credit which has helped me get my score from a 580 to about 620 in a short time. Thanks every one for all the great information.

My last actual FICO score was 585 from 03/02/2014 from TU. But my FAKOs the other day from EIDT aka MPM credit monitoring were TU 620 EX 587 EQ 609 which uses the TransRisk New Account Credit Score. I had my girlfriend add me to her Amex awhile back as an authorized user and while I didn't get any B* because they don't do that anymore, I did get a nice bump on my FAKO scores. However, she added me to her Wells Fargo Mastercard with $8500 credit limit with $0.00 balance and a perfect payment history since 2007 and I did get B* BUT... and this is a big BUT... my score on EIDT aka MPM DROPPED to TU 620 EX 561 EQ 547 (hasn't shown up on TU yet).

Any ideas why? I thought being added on a card with decent credit limit, long and perfect payment history and low or no balance would increase my score, not lower it.

[azguy13]

Those are FAKO scores and you should pay no attention to them. They are not correct and are not the algorithm that FICO uses. Just use FAKO to see whats in your report, not the score. 

[Funkenstein]

So. azguy13, you think it is nothing to worry about and that I should just continue the course and stay with being an AU on her card that dropped my FAKOs and wait and see until I get a true FICO score next time? I figured my score is so low at this point there is no point in paying for FICO scores. My plan was to use FAKOs as a general guideline to make sure I am going in the right direction while I repair my credit and later, once some progress is made and some baddies have dropped off, then I could pay to check my FICOs before applying for anything important, which there is nothing important at the moment.

[azguy13]

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@Funkenstein wrote:

So. azguy13, you think it is nothing to worry about and that I should just continue the course and stay with being an AU on her card that dropped my FAKOs and wait and see until I get a true FICO score next time? I figured my score is so low at this point there is no point in paying for FICO scores. My plan was to use FAKOs as a general guideline to make sure I am going in the right direction while I repair my credit and later, once some progress is made and some baddies have dropped off, then I could pay to check my FICOs before applying for anything important, which there is nothing important at the moment.

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If it were me, this is what I would do. 

If you are not planing on applying for anything in the near future, there is no need to pull your FICO and pay $20 each. Use the FAKO sites  to determine what all your derogatory marks are and focus on getting them off. If there are collection accounts, start offering PFD (pay for delete). If you have late payments then start sending letters and emails to those lenders asking for those lates to e removed. Once you have gone as far as you can with that, then I would pull my FICO. That will tell you where you are at.

[Funkenstein]

Thanks! Solid ideas. That's exactly what I'm in the process of doing and even a few other things. I did a lot of lurking up to this point and have learned so much that I never knew. Mostly that I have been an idiot about my credit. It will be interesting to see how the other FAKO scores are affected. 

I wonder if anyone else has any other ideas or experience on this topic.

[Shogun]

Sometimes it's difficult to understand why scores rollercoaster like they do, especially FAKOs.  I would let it ride and work on cleaning your report and building more credit of your own.  With a little time and effort, you will start to see the bump you want.

[azguy13]

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@Funkenstein wrote:

Thanks! Solid ideas. That's exactly what I'm in the process of doing and even a few other things. I did a lot of lurking up to this point and have learned so much that I never knew. Mostly that I have been an idiot about my credit. It will be interesting to see how the other FAKO scores are affected. 

I wonder if anyone else has any other ideas or experience on this topic.

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I bet there are more of us on here than not, lol. 

This forum has literally improved my quality of life. Hopefully it will do the same for you. Welcome to the forum!

[Funkenstein]

Thanks Shogun. Your experience says a lot. I figured as much. It's easy to become a little obessive here in the beginning, especially with being able to pull reports/FAKOs daily haha. Maybe it is because the card hasn't been used for a while and has been reporting zero balance for a long time? It shows CL of $8500 and high balance on one report of $5520 and zero high balance on another. I just went ahead and ordered an $11 item on Amazon to give it something to report for balance. Maybe the next month it will help it? Who knows. I think over time it should help or I have heard your score can go down for a month if you are rebucketed and I should have been on the edge of a rebucket. I just got a Cap One prepaid that has not reported yet, and I did expect that to drop my score slightly at first since it would hurt my AAoA. But I didn't expect to have the AU account lower my score since I have read almost nothing but positive results unless the card had lates or high utilization or if it was a card with a short history.

[Funkenstein]

I think I may have figured out why my FAKO dropped. The TransRisk New Account Credit Score used by MPM aka EIDT I believe is the same one used by CK. If you are using 0% credit card utllization vs 1-20% credit card utilization, that factors for a lower score in their algorithm. Adding the new card on my report as an AU with an $8500 CL and ZERO balance took my utilizaiton from 2% to 0% and BAM lowered my FAKO.

Also, Bump.