AU impact

[Anonymous]

Apologies. Not sure if this should go in the credit card or mortgage section. My wife added me as an AU a few months ago to her recently obtained Amex CC. She used it as a BT of 5k with a 10k limit. The plan was to help me establish a relationship with Amex because I haven't had much luck with them in the past due to me closing an account with them 10 years ago. 

we were recently approached by our landlord to ask if we wanted to purchase the house we are renting so I started the process of getting a mortgage pre approval. I was approved and everythis is great but today I got an alert from the CBS that a new account was added to my profile. I checked my scores and they have all dropped by 10-15 pta from ~715 to ~700 each. I'm worried about the impact on the lower scores and new account now showing up when we go to close. I am the only one on the mortgage. Should I have her remove me? Or is the damage already done?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Apologies. Not sure if this should go in the credit card or mortgage section. My wife added me as an AU a few months ago to her recently obtained Amex CC. She used it as a BT of 5k with a 10k limit. The plan was to help me establish a relationship with Amex because I haven't had much luck with them in the past due to me closing an account with them 10 years ago. 

we were recently approached by our landlord to ask if we wanted to purchase the house we are renting so I started the process of getting a mortgage pre approval. I was approved and everythis is great but today I got an alert from the CBS that a new account was added to my profile. I checked my scores and they have all dropped by 10-15 pta from ~715 to ~700 each. I'm worried about the impact on the lower scores and new account now showing up when we go to close. I am the only one on the mortgage. Should I have her remove me? Or is the damage already done?

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I would have her remove it, and hope that it helps. I think it would remove it as a new account.

But I can't give you a definitive answer.

[Anonymous]

I'm not an expert on this, and someone will likley be along to provide accurate info.

I think you could remove the account and have them rescore if 10-15 points is that big of a deal. Though I feel that it really isn't as 700 is still within the new guidelines, unless the lender feels differently that is. 

[Anonymous]

Thank you. I appreciate the input. I'm leaning towards having her remove me. 

[K-in-Boston]

I would have myself removed and ask for a rescore after it is done.  The date you were added as an AU is when Amex will show the opening date of the account on your reports, so with it being a new account and having 50% utilization, it is hurting you.

Also, being an authorized user on an American Express account is not a factor they consider when applying for your own primary account.

You stated that you closed an account with them 10 years ago; that would not normally be an obstacle to being approved.  Was the card charged off, included in bankruptcy, or otherwise closed under non-ideal circumstances?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Apologies. Not sure if this should go in the credit card or mortgage section. My wife added me as an AU a few months ago to her recently obtained Amex CC. She used it as a BT of 5k with a 10k limit. The plan was to help me establish a relationship with Amex because I haven't had much luck with them in the past due to me closing an account with them 10 years ago. 

we were recently approached by our landlord to ask if we wanted to purchase the house we are renting so I started the process of getting a mortgage pre approval. I was approved and everythis is great but today I got an alert from the CBS that a new account was added to my profile. I checked my scores and they have all dropped by 10-15 pta from ~715 to ~700 each. I'm worried about the impact on the lower scores and new account now showing up when we go to close. I am the only one on the mortgage. Should I have her remove me? Or is the damage already done?

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OK, so this is an AMEX, so two things - 

1) unlike other cards, it shows as a NEW card for you - ie you don't inherit the good old years-long history she might have, and on top of that it can hurt your AAoA.  It shows as a brand new account where many other issuers will show the AU for the full history of that card - ie my mother added me and my DW - magically we have a 15-yr-old account on our profile as an AU.  Not perfect, a lot of creditors ignore them, etc - but it was nicer than Amex's "NEW" status.  

2) When you have your wife REMOVE you, IT WILL LIKELY STILL SHOW on your credit reports - or at least SOME of them.  Again, this is a peculiarity of Amex.  A dispute with the credit bureau saying it isn't your account and you aren't responsible for it SHOULD take care of it. 

I made this mistake last year.  Oops. I haven't disputed it yet.  Too many other priorities.

[dacv01]

I can confirm this as an AU on my SO's AMEX. We had to close the account, and I was first removed from the account. When she opened new account, and added me back to it,  my old AU account is still on my credit even now. It does say responsibility terminated, but its still across all 3 CRs. Havent gotten around to seeing about it being removed as it never had a balance. 

[BmoreBull]

I wish I knew this before. I just had my mom add me as an AU on her Amex. I thought I was going to get her four years of perfect credit. Not a new account ding. I'll see how this pans out. It hasn't reported yet. 

[K-in-Boston]

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@BmoreBull wrote:

I wish I knew this before. I just had my mom add me as an AU on her Amex. I thought I was going to get her four years of perfect credit. Not a new account ding. I'll see how this pans out. It hasn't reported yet. 

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You will definitely have an account opening date equal to the date you were added.  Amex actually backdated accounts to the first year you were known in their system until about 5 years ago (so if you had an account in 1985, then opened a new one on the 1st of July, 2014, it would report as opened on the 1st of July, 1985).  When they stopped backdating, they took it to the extreme of not even inheriting the history of an existing account.

[KatSoDak]

I realize this is a post from last year but boy oh boy is it relevant to me!

In December I had my DH add me as an AU on his brand new Amex, during the application process. It never crossed my mind that this would impact my average age of accounts and AOYA/AOYRA in particular. 

Today I read something here on MF that got me thinking about this so did  search and verified that indeed this was a dumb move on my part since I'm about to hit the one year mark on my newest card. Dang. Also the SL in this card of DH's is not helpful as far as utilization goes.  Found this thread of posts after my call to Amex so figured I'd comment here.

I called Amex an hour ago and chatted with a rep who was super nice and knowledgeable. He verified that this AU account reported on my CRA as a new account. I had him remove me. He said it would report within 14 days.

Getting/giving accurate DPs on this is difficult because I also had a auto loan payoff in January which lowered my score. I saw an average loss of 20 pts but don't know how much was from loan pay off and how much was from Amex reporting new card on Jan 25th.

Regardless, I feel good about removing AU status. By mid March my AoyA will be a year. Hopefully this removal will have adjusted before that so I can see an slight improvement in April. My scores are pretty good even with the 20-30 point loss in the last 30 days (780-805) but I've taken an interest in factors that affect them so am curious to see what happens next.

Now I'm going to re-up my ESPN+ subscription so I can watch the NDSU Bison game this afternoon!