Rebuilding Credit Takes Time

[CreditBob]

I wanted to share this with everyone because I have been through it as far as having to rebuild my credit. Back in 1990 I got in a very bad scooter accident which devastated my credit. So I had a medical bankruptcy, judgements, charge offs, collections, tax liens, etc. which made my score in the 400 range. In order to rebuild my credit I started with secured accounts and it took a few years. And because I reestablished credit in the right way all my creditors & the banks have no problems giving me a loan or line of credit. And because I have been through just about every situation they even ask me for advice. And I have told them that AUTHORIZED USER ACCOUNTS have no business being reported to teh credit bureaus. AU accounts is menat for a secondary perosn(s) to have access to funds to an account that has been approved by the actual account holder.

The first thing is, DO NOT have AUTHORIZED USER ACCOUNTS on your credit report. All creditors want to see that the account actually belongs to you. This means you have to make regular payments. A good credit rating has to be earned, it cannot just be given out like it were candy. And in talking with my lenders they stated the following, " WE WILL NOT EVEN LOOK AT AN AUTHORIZED USER ACCOUNT. THESE TYPES OF CONSUMERS LACK THE CREDIT WORTHINESS & HAVE NOT DEMONSTRATED THAT THEY CAN MAKE PAYMENTS ON TIME BECAUSE AUTHORIZED USER ACCOUNTS DO NOT BELONG TO THEM. AND WE DO NOT CARE IF THE FICO SCORE IS SHOWN HIGHER BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOT EARNED THE SCORE WHICH WAS JUST GIVEN TO THEM!!!!"

[p-]

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CreditBob wrote: The first thing is, DO NOT have AUTHORIZED USER ACCOUNTS on your credit report.

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 False.  

Although it is true a manual reviewer will not grant much weight to an AU account, an authorized user account can raise your score, potentially allowing automatic approvals that do not require a manual review.  If the computer says yes, a person never sees it.

Also, if you have an AU account that is ten or more years old, your AAOA will be significantly better.  So when you have two or more years of your own good credit card history, coupled with a very old AU account, your auto and manual reviews will be positive.

While an AU account is not a magic wand that will grant you credit everywhere, a positive, well-aged AU account will not hurt you and can only help.

[p-]

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p- wrote: While an AU account is not a magic wand that will grant you credit everywhere, a positive, well-aged AU account will not hurt you and can only help.

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Here's an example;  Back when I was rebuilding, my wife and I both needed to have a specific middle FICO score to qualify for an FHA loan.  Adding me as an AU on a coule of her older accounts raised my FICO score enough to cross that threshold.  Although I'm sure the manual review looked closely at my own accounts, the AU accounts got me through the barrier to entry that would have stopped the whole thing.

In that case, AU saved my bacon.

[abundancejones]

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@p- wrote:

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p- wrote: While an AU account is not a magic wand that will grant you credit everywhere, a positive, well-aged AU account will not hurt you and can only help.

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Here's an example;  Back when I was rebuilding, my wife and I both needed to have a specific middle FICO score to qualify for an FHA loan.  Adding me as an AU on a coule of her older accounts raised my FICO score enough to cross that threshold.  Although I'm sure the manual review looked closely at my own accounts, the AU accounts got me through the barrier to entry that would have stopped the whole thing.

In that case, AU saved my bacon.

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Agreed!

Credit repair can also be as short or as long as you make it. My sister had a whole slew of baddies and was able to get them off in 2 months. She also has AU accounts and they have helped her. It just depends on how dedicated you are to fixing things and what your reports look like.  

Its important not to make blanket statements because credit is complicated and there are many "it depends" scenarios. 

[DaveSignal]

AU accounts were definitly advantageous to my wife, who moved to the United States with no credit whatsoever.  It would have taken her years to obtain decent credit on her own, but we established an approval-granting profile for her in about 6 months, thanks mostly to the benefit of AU accounts along with a single joint account that I created with her.