AU question

[whodatnation2]

When you add someone as an AU, do they do an inquiry on their credit??

[Anonymous]

I've added my husband to my Cap One cards, Amex, and Discover, and so far, no inquiries have popped up on his credit.  I think that's because it doesn't really matter what the AU's credit is like since your credit is the one that will suffer if they screw up.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@whodatnation2 wrote:

When you add someone as an AU, do they do an inquiry on their credit??

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No they don't, because the AU is not applying for credit. They're just mooching. (I'm an AU on a card, too.)

However, American Express will check their internal records to see if the AU has ever burned them. That's why AmEx asks for the AU's social, while other lenders generally don't.

[Anonymous]

HTSU, I might add that "mooching" is usually predicated by "smooching".

I love love, and the world loves lovers, but...keep your left up.

[whodatnation2]

thanks everybody!!!!

[LS2982]

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@Anonymous wrote:

HTSU, I might add that "mooching" is usually predicated by "smooching".

I love love, and the world loves lovers, but...keep your left up.

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[whodatnation2]

So how does it report to the AU's credit report without a ssn?

[CreditAble]

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@whodatnation2 wrote:

So how does it report to the AU's credit report without a ssn?

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Actually the SS# is not the primary identifier that the bureaus use to match up files with consumers. The address is the primary piece of info that gets matched. If the AU lives (or at one time lived) at the same addy as the account holder, that' a match. That is one reason that two people with same names and similar addys but different SS#s can end up in the same file. 

Even if the AU lives elsewhere it is still possible to match via addys somehow .

[RyVision]

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@whodatnation2 wrote:

So how does it report to the AU's credit report without a ssn?

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Since I'm up doing things and checking on here I'll try to answer with what I know.  They don't all report. Sometimes they do want the SSN. You can ask them sometimes to report if your unsure (a good lead in to ask to have it report is to ask if it will report, then go from there).  I've seldom seen the need to a SSN in order to have a line report on an AU. I think it's name, address etc, I think if they don't see what they need for the AU's info, they may ask for futher info in order to report.

I do know most of the time Chase, Citi, BoA, Cap1, do report. That's why I think you can always ask if they do to be sure. I just spotted CreditAble's response as I was writing this line and I obviously agree with it.

I think you can also do a search near the top of this page by entering something along the line of (say you were refering to Chase)  "Chase reporting AU" and see if some answers came up in the auto suggest area below the search field. Also you can do a deeper search I think buy clicking "Search" if the drop down suggestions aren't enough.

[haulingthescoreup]

Chase definitely reports AU's, at least on my Freedom card.

They match by address, by last name, by a variety of things. One might be that you have a common address somewhere on your file, including former addresses. So if a parent wants to add a grown child, who lives elsewhere, it can be reported because the grown child's file generally lists the home address as a former address.

It doesn't have to be same last name AND same address, either. One seems to be enough.