topic Re: Authorized User Question in General Credit Topics

Authorized User Question

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 17:30:59 GMT

Hello!

I am being added as an authorized user to a credit card with a very large limit $10,000, but its is a new card. Will this have any affect on my credit score since it's a new card? Or does the account have to be older?

Re: Authorized User Question

simplynoir — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 17:53:01 GMT

It depends on what your profile looks like at the moment but for the time being there are several ways this could affect your score. Since it is a new account (assuming you mean primary just recently applied for card) your AAoA will take a hit, how big depends on the age of your other accounts and how many of them you have. And another is utilization since it's a fairly sized limit being added if you have high utilization this could help bring it down some; if you have little usage then it probably won't help much.

Re: Authorized User Question

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 17:56:10 GMT

@simplynior,

I have 1 car loan ($24,00) and 2 Credit cards Cap 1 -$750 and $300. No balance My score is 603 right now

Re: Authorized User Question

simplynoir — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 18:41:22 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@simplynior,

I have 1 car loan ($24,00) and 2 Credit cards Cap 1 -$750 and $300. No balance My score is 603 right now

It'll help if only because for ideal FICO scoring purposes it's good to have 3 open lines of credit with two cards reporting $0 balances and the 3rd card reporting <9% to maximize your scores. I'm guessing they're fairly new those two CapOne cards so the new $10k CL showing on the AU card should be good for you as well. Pretty nice overall if you're starting off and/or rebuilding.

Re: Authorized User Question

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 18:53:06 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@simplynior,

I have 1 car loan ($24,00) and 2 Credit cards Cap 1 -$750 and $300. No balance My score is 603 right now

You need one credit card to report a small balance. Otherwise FICO will give you a substantial penalty (20 points or so).

I am assuming that the "$750 and $300" figures you give are credit limits, right?

Adding the very young AU account will probably not help your score and may harm it, depending on what your current AAoA is (Average Age of Accounts). SimplyNoir is right that having a third credit card could help you, but you could do that alone by simply adding a third card of your own. The 10k credit limit doesn't matter -- FICO doesn't give you any extra scoring points for having a big CL. All FICO cares about in that respect is your utilization, and yours is already extremely low.

Is there a spouse or roommate or parent who has a card that is old, clean, and with a very low or $0 balance? That's the kind of card to which you would want to be added to as an AU.

Re: Authorized User Question

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 18:56:40 GMT

Yes my limits are $750 and $300.

My average age of accounts (accoring to Credit Karma is 7 months)

Re: Authorized User Question

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 19:01:50 GMT

Karma is AAoA calculator is reliable only if you have no closed accounts.

Re: Authorized User Question

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 19:03:11 GMT

oh ok!

How do I find out my AAoA

Re: Authorized User Question

simplynoir — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 19:20:07 GMT

Obtain a free credit report from creditscore.com as it uses FICO 08 Experian scoring. That should get you started on what is exactly on your account at the moment.

Re: Authorized User Question

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 19:30:35 GMT

Thnaks simply!!

The report says my AA0A is 5 years, 9 mths so would this new card help??

Re: Authorized User Question

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 19:35:30 GMT

@simplynoir wrote:
Obtain a free credit report from creditscore.com as it uses FICO 08 Experian scoring. That should get you started on what is exactly on your account at the moment.

Great advice from SimplyNoir regarding creditscore.com. An additional part of your toolkit could be the $1 trial offer at Credit Check Total. That will give you a three-bureau report and three FICO 8 scores, all for a buck.

Keep Karma is part of your toolkit. It's a fabulous tool for pulling your EQ and TU reports as often as once a week. And if a person has no closed accounts, it gives you an accurate read on what your AAoA is as well. Karma plus creditScore.com gives you monthly free access to all three reports. Nice.

Finally, look into whether you can locate someone with an old, clean, and zero balance credit card for your AU. Your idea is basically very smart -- it would just be better to find a more ideal card than one that was just opened a couple months ago.