AU question

[megaman1]

They said something along the lines of "We report AU as a person making charges, but not someone who is responsible for the account, etc"..

[Longroad]

Chase, Barclay and Wally all report my on my DW and she is an AU on my accounts and I am an AU on her Citi and Barclay and those accounts show on my CR. I was an AU on my moms AMEX and it shows still and even shows as my oldest CL when calculating my AAoA. Uses her MSD of 1981. 

[megaman1]

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@k-s wrote:
Discover DEFINITELY reports AUs. Within 24 hours of applying (and adding me as an AU), DBF's new It card was on my CR.
Amex also reports me as an AU, as does Chase, Citi Best Buy, and GE ON Visa.

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Did you have to give Discover your SSN like jspring mentioned previously or did it report to your credit report just by having your first and last name added by your DBF?

My main worry is how Discover will know exactly which John Doe is an AU on my account if there's no specific identifying information such as SSN..

[jspring86]

One thing I should mention is that they did report to the CBs when I was added as a AU for the first 3 months the card was opened without any issues, then for some reason it went 4 months without updating on my Equifax report.  That is when I called in and asked to give them my SSN and the rep did a mid-cycle report for me.  

I think what the Discover rep is telling you is that they list the AU as an authorized user when they report to the CBs and not as the individual responsible.  This is normal and does not stop your AU from receiving the score benefits from the tradeline.  

[megaman1]

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@jspring86 wrote:

One thing I should mention is that they did report to the CBs when I was added as a AU for the first 3 months the card was opened without any issues, then for some reason it went 4 months without updating on my Equifax report.  That is when I called in and asked to give them my SSN and the rep did a mid-cycle report for me.  

I think what the Discover rep is telling you is that they list the AU as an authorized user when they report to the CBs and not as the individual responsible.  This is normal and does not stop your AU from receiving the score benefits from the tradeline.  

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How did you find out they stopped reporting to Equifax for 4 months? Creditkarma?

And how did Discover know which jspring's report to add onto prior to you giving your SSN? I'm still confused about this..

[jspring86]

Well they have the AU name and other information, so they can report to the CBs using that, I assume thats how they reported for the first three months.  I don't have any idea why they stopped reporting to Equifax in the 4th month, but it was hurting my score which is why I called them up to see how it could be fixed.  

I noticed they had not been reporting to Equifax because I was planning to buy a car and pulled all three of my reports here at Myfico.  It was strange that they had been reporting to Experian and Transunion the whole time but there was some break in their reporting to Equifax.  In any event, it was fixed pretty quickly.  I think if you list your AU they will see the account report after the next statement, they could easily use Credit Karma to check that since it is free, but Transunion is known to take longer to update than the other two agencies.  

[k-s]

No SSN, just name for me.

[megaman1]

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@jspring86 wrote:

Well they have the AU name and other information, so they can report to the CBs using that, I assume thats how they reported for the first three months.  I don't have any idea why they stopped reporting to Equifax in the 4th month, but it was hurting my score which is why I called them up to see how it could be fixed.  

I noticed they had not been reporting to Equifax because I was planning to buy a car and pulled all three of my reports here at Myfico.  It was strange that they had been reporting to Experian and Transunion the whole time but there was some break in their reporting to Equifax.  In any event, it was fixed pretty quickly.  I think if you list your AU they will see the account report after the next statement, they could easily use Credit Karma to check that since it is free, but Transunion is known to take longer to update than the other two agencies.  

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Weird thing for me is that if I want to add an AU, all Discover needs is a first and last name and nothing else...

[jspring86]

I guess maybe they did only ask for my name when I was originally added.  Maybe they get the other information once your authorized user begins using their card with their name on it?  That seems reasonable to me.  

[09Lexie]

Discover reports AUs; the issue is whether or not the CBs can match the information based solely on name. You will run into difficulty when the last name and/od addresses do not match.