topic Re: Authorized vs Joint Cardholder in Credit Cards

Authorized vs Joint Cardholder

Anonymous — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:24:04 GMT

Any ideas on which of these holds more weight in terms of scores? I have my husband as authorized on 3-4 of my cards, I'm wondering if switching him to joint user will increase his scores. I already added him as joint on one and had to fill out a special form for it, but that was back before I was monitoring his scores so I don't know how much of a difference it will make. Trying to get his score as high as possible! (aren't we all?)

Thanks!

Re: Authorized vs Joint Cardholder

b_seeker — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:47:42 GMT

Some scoring models weight AUs differently but it varies and I'm not sure how. The advantage to being a joint user is that certain banks, like Chase, ignore AU accounts.

Re: Authorized vs Joint Cardholder

boomhower — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:58:05 GMT

More and more scoring models ignore AU accounts. To the best of my knowledge no FICO models do this, just various FAKO's, namely Vantage if memory serves. Upon a manual review joint is certainly better as your credit was taken into consideration which is not the case with AU accounts.

Re: Authorized vs Joint Cardholder

b_seeker — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:03:25 GMT

I looked it up on FICO scoring and AU accounts. Their 08 model initially wasn't going to count AU accounts but they changed their mind. If a new model releases, they could very well go back to not counting them. So in the future, yes, FICO MAY not count them but for now they do.

Re: Authorized vs Joint Cardholder

navigatethis12 — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:07:26 GMT

A joint account will at least look better on a manual review to more strict underwriters. An authorised user has no responsibility to pay the debt on the card, but a joint cardholder does.

Re: Authorized vs Joint Cardholder

Anonymous — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:37:49 GMT

Thanks for the advice! I had assumed an authorized user wouldn't carry as much weight. We are going to be in the market to purchase a home in about a year so I'm bring proactive to make sure we have no problems when the time comes.

I have a NFCU credit card with a 20k limit, he is an authorized user right now, I'd like to add him as joint, but not sure they will approve him for that (his FAKOs are about 625-640). The funny thing is they gave me a 20k limit and I don't even work, our numbers are based off of my husbands income!

Hope they will approve him!