Oh, apologies Hi-All, I just saw your post about your wife's scores. I really have no idea what your scores will be, but check them and do look over your credit reports carefully to see if there are any baddies/inaccuracies which you can correct. If your DW has baddies, I don't know if these will be reflected in your score as AU. If your score ends up being around 650-660, do bump your other thread, you'll get a lot more great advice.

You may also want to consider a local credit union where you can go in and explain your particular situation. I have a good friend from Germany who had probs getting credit b/c of his thin file/low scores (he is a phd, great credit in Germany, real good income here, but no luck with the big banks). He went to a local CU and they were great to his particular situation which didn't fit the usual formulas. Good luck!!

On AU accounts: if you are the authorized user, you will receive the history, good and bad, only on the accounts that you share. If those are clean, and there are problems elsewhere in the primary cardholder's history, you are not affected. So for example:

Card A: clean, 10 years history
Card B: clean, 2 years history
Card C: 2 30-day, 1 60-day late, 12 years history

Card A would be wonderful for AU --long history, no derogs. Card B would be useful for those in Hi-All's position: clean with short history, but longer than his. Card C would be dreadful, long history or not. Going on Cards A or B as AU would not expose you to the credit history issues resulting from Card C. Hope that makes sense!

Message Edited by HI-ALL on 01-06-2008 08:09 AM

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HI-ALL wrote:

hey jaytoo&haulingthescoreup

my FICO score is 710-740 from a free link in this forum.

I have got all 'A+' except in Age & Type of Credits category.

anyhow I will check it tomorrow from myFICO,that will b the perfect n accurate score as we all know.

so suggest me abt this score n abt my future cards and is this score accurate or not?

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Sounds like the Score Estimator --that's not carved in stone, but it's very encouraging! I've always said that college students and others brand new to credit with no derogatories would start out somewhere around 700.

You don't have to wait for customer service to pull your scores --it's just as easy to do it yourself if you like. First go online and Google FICO coupon and FICO discount code to get at least 10% off (you can probably find higher), and then click on the Products tab at the top of this page. I think FICO Credit Complete is your best bet --it pulls all three scores (a one-time pull), and you get the score simulator for your EQ and TU scores, which predicts future score changes as you do different things. That's a bit more targeted to where you are than the estimator, but again, it's no guarantee of what will happen. At any rate, there will be a space to enter the discount code, I think toward the bottom of the second screen when you're ordering.

As to the best cards, you're in the same situation as other newcomers to the US, with the advantage of having some AU status. So I don't know if you can just proceed in selecting credit cards as if all your history were your own, or if creditors would treat things a bit differently since only one account is all yours, and it's very new. When you pull your new scores, I would try starting a new thread, listing your BofA plus the AU cards, what your three scores are, the fact that you're brand new with a very short but clean history, and ask for advice from there. Can't wait to see what you find out!

Great info above about the AUs. I've never been an AU on any acct, but I've only really thought about the positives with it, not the negatives. Very good to learn.

Hi-all, definitely great advice from hauling. The forty-something dollars for the 3-in-1 would be money well spent; I would see it as "investing in my future". Also, for future reference, you would know where you started. Plus, you could do it now and end our curiosity!!! I look forward to the new thread with your true scores. Fingers still crossed!

Oh, that's right, I'd forgotten about your "dual identity."

I don't know how that all gets untangled, but when I first joined and lived in confusion, I found the myFICO CSR's very helpful (certainly more so than the CRA CSR's, lol.) So you're right, looks like you'll have to wait until tomorrow. I think they're on Pacific time, so their 6 a.m. is 9 a.m. Eastern.

I have ScoreWatch, plus I pull all three scores way too often. I have kept ScoreWatch going. Even though it hits flat periods where I don't seem to get any updates, it has been really useful at other times, especially when I was adding an account, trying to get things to report correctly, and so forth. It's also nice that when you do get an alert, the score report is cheaper (once you've burned up your freebies.

I think it's a 30-day free trial, so there might not be any hurry in dropping it. Up to you, of course!