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My wife is bringing me down!!

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Anonymous
Not applicable

My wife is bringing me down!!

Well its been a while since ive been on here after this forum helped me get my CS back in shape to close on our first home!

I just recently went over my CH and was shocked to find a couple of things. After we bought our house (2011) my wife added me as an AU on 2 of her credit cards, one being a Macys AMEX card and a Discover card. CLs for both is $1200 for AMEX a $7200 for Discover (my biggest credit limit on my report). And I believe these were helping my credit until after the beginning of this year when we had a child and had medical bills up the wahzoo. Needless to say all the work we put into maintaing the Discover card was put to waste. Now with 2 kids, a mortgage and all sorts of bills trying to lower our balance is becoming futile.  The Macys card has been fine  with balance being paid off every month until i just found out the last 2 months havent been paid leaving us with a 60 day deliquency of $135 balance.

Heres my question, should I jump ship as an AU on one or both of the cards. I did the math and my current utilization rate is 86% (the balance onf the Discover is $7000), now if I removed myself from the Discover it would drop to @ 50%. My overall available credit would drop significantly as well from $9700 to $2500, but I feel the lower util percentange is more important. I think Ill keep the Macys going the deliquencies are the only thing on the account over the past 5 years.

Just in case you were wondering I have a pretty nice mix of installment loans (mortgage, car lease), revolving accts, low inquiries and 1 collection account that was paid off and is paid status and just sitting there for the next 3 years but was paid 3 years ago.  So everything is pretty good except for the account that i am an AU on.

 

My second part to this is will removing myself just remove the whole history of the Discover account or will just stop collecting data? Are there any potential negative effects of removing the card(s)?

 

Thanks for taking the time to read all this. This is truly a great place to get pure information.

 

Message 1 of 14
13 REPLIES 13
scarrollprint
Frequent Contributor

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

USUALLY when you remove AU it removes ALL the info from the report since it wasn't your card/account/liability. Now if she defalted and it went to collections then you'd bet they'd keep it on there as long as you didn't dispute it as not yours...

 

when it works for you, they don't want it, when it works against you they try with all their might to have it hurt you more it seems.



Current: Eq- 624 Ex - 631 (lender pulled) TU - 661 (lender pulled)
Goal 700+ across all three
Message 2 of 14
S7
Established Contributor

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

Agreed!

"When you are down in the mouth, remember, everything turned out ok for Jonah."

Current FICO's(by lender) 10/9/12
EX:649, EX:651, TU:683
Message 3 of 14
novabama
Frequent Contributor

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

I was an AU on an account with discover that was charged off. I actually just called the CC co and told them to remove me and they deleted from my CR the next day.

 

If it were me I would jump ship on both as long as you have revolving credit lines of your own... it's weighing your util down and a very recent 60 day late can tank a score. 

 

Good luck!

Message 4 of 14
novabama
Frequent Contributor

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

also it's not like you couldn't become an AU again later, after you have been able to pay down the debt. 

Message 5 of 14
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

Well heres the dilemma with getting off of both, the CL for Discover is $7200, the CL for Macys is $1200 so my over CL on all my ccs is $9750. I jump ship off bother my CL drops to $1350 and my balances would total $1260, that is a 93% utlization rate!! If I kept the Macy card my CL drops to $2550 and my balances would be $1395, which is 55%. So what is the lesser of the 2 evils? High utilization of 60 day late that has paid off now. Keep in mind I'm not trying to improve my credit for a certain purpose, but i would like to keep it trending up and honestly I have no idea how much my mortgage is helping. We've had it for 18 months with perfect payments but Id rather be using that benefit not as a crutch but as a foundation.

Message 6 of 14
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

She hasnt defaulted just 60 day late and high utilization on the credit card

Message 7 of 14
scarrollprint
Frequent Contributor

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

you have to remember, as long as your an AU the current info will be on your reports as if its yours.

 

If your not in the market for new credit right now, then why do you care what your utilization is?

 

If your in garden mode all you really have to worry about is keeping negative info off your reports and/or getting rid of negative info so that when your ready to apply for new credit (either a card, or a loan or whatever) you can just drop your utilizaito and get the instant boost.

 

 

So if your report is 100% spotless (not including this 60 day late) even if your at 99% utilization, you could easily pay it all off and next month BAM instant score jump due to the major drop in utilization and thus you look more appealing to creditors.

 

Don't forget her having a 60 day late on the card even though paid back is still a negative that is now on your report. I'd say drop the one that has the late now... its alot easier to bring your utilization down than it is to fight a 60 day late (even if its paid).

 

whenever your ready for new credit, add yourslef back on an AU they usually don't add on back info - although they might if you were an AU and then stopped and re-added again. But still worth a shot - would give you back that age as well as the CL without showing the negative info.

 

Either way if you just keep it on the 60 day will hurt more than high utilization down the road. You can always pay down a balance and it magically goes away, you can't always just tell a ccc to ignore a 60 day when apping.



Current: Eq- 624 Ex - 631 (lender pulled) TU - 661 (lender pulled)
Goal 700+ across all three
Message 8 of 14
Tommy5746
Regular Contributor

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

Divorce my friend... Dddddddddivorce! haha Jk!

Goal: 700 and an Amex Card!

Chicks Dig Guys With Good Credit Smiley Happy
Message 9 of 14
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: My wife is bringing me down!!

I understand what you are saying but I can't just wait till I want to get credit for something and just pay off my ccs. That's 10k, which if we could pay off we would.
And if I got rid of only the 60 late then my utilization would go up to 97%. That just sounds kind of crazy. So it's 60 day late more negative than carrying a 97% utilization rate? And let's answer that question for short term and long term(like 1 year from now)
Message 10 of 14
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