Question about being an AU

[Anonymous]

I DC BK7 in Jan 2016. I'm doing OK in my rebuild but was wondering if it would help if I became an AU on some of my girlfriend's accounts. She has excellent credit with some seriously huge CL and it would be to simply bolster my credit so we can buy a house in a few years. I would not access any of her CL. 

The reason I ask is that if there is *ANY* chance that simply putting me on as an AU would hurt her credit due to my checkered past, I would not even consider it. 

Thanks!

[jmclaughlin1982]

Short answer is yes, it will help your credit immensely.
No, your past credit will not hurt yourself or her account. As an authorized user you are listed as such on your reports. Her reports show nothing about you at all.
Even if you choose to not have a card, although most places will automatically send you one anyway, the history from the account will show on your credit reports.
One of my first steps after my 341 was to have myself added as AU on all my husbands cards. My score went up 45 points after they were added.
One caveat, make sure your girlfriend has no baddies on her cards at all. Even a 30 or 60 day late will hurt you. Also, make sure her usage isn't sky high. Although the accounts will still help your score, when you apply for credit you will start getting "credit usage too high" denials.
Hope this helps and keep us updated.

[Anonymous]

I agree with what was said, I would just like to add that the companies you're listed as an AU on can't ever demand you to pay the debt. So in the event something happened to your girlfriend, you aren't on the hook to pay the debt.

When my husband and I met, he had zero credit. I put him on my oldest CC and my CC with the highest credit limit, but lowest balance and his score went from nothing to 711 in a very short time. We were easily approved for a house with both of our credit about 6 months after I added him.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to both of you. 

I was curious about this and I do want to do this about six months out from us buying a house. However, since that is still a few years away there is a good chance my score will equal hers by then  

[sarge12]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I DC BK7 in Jan 2016. I'm doing OK in my rebuild but was wondering if it would help if I became an AU on some of my girlfriend's accounts. She has excellent credit with some seriously huge CL and it would be to simply bolster my credit so we can buy a house in a few years. I would not access any of her CL. 

The reason I ask is that if there is *ANY* chance that simply putting me on as an AU would hurt her credit due to my checkered past, I would not even consider it. 

Thanks!

---

Will not hurt her credit, but will be very little help on yours. It used to help more, but as people were gaming the system the newer fico 08, and fico 09 models started discounting this data....not like your own card at all. Lots of info on web to confirm this, google it.

[sarge12]

Read about it here

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/authorized-user-credit-score/

[sarge12]

By the way, when I said people were gaming the system I mean there were unscrupulous credit repair companies that were getting low limit cards in their names and making their clients AU on in return for huge fees. It was working for a while, but when Fico caught wind of what they were doing they started discounting the AU data.

[Scupra]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks to both of you. 

I was curious about this and I do want to do this about six months out from us buying a house. However, since that is still a few years away there is a good chance my score will equal hers by then  

---

AU accounts won't mean much during a mortgage. Make sure to build your own profile as well.