Authorized user on 6 credit cards?????

[Anonymous]

Me and my girlfriend are on each others credit cards.  Mine are normally paid in full each month and until 6 months ago her's were too.  Now she is at 71% utilization (no it's not because she's buying gifts for me) and my score has tanked.  I want to get a loan but can't with a 644 equifax, 656 experian and 613 transunion.  Transunion is identical to Equifax and I will never know why there is such a drastic difference in score but I digress.  So I have 4 Cards with 15g  credit limit and I'm on 6 of her cards.  If I remove myself from all of the ones being over utilized will my credit tank further?

[Remedios]

Without you posting all of your (and hers)  cards with their current utilization, there is not enough information to accurately answer your question 

[RobertEG]

With that many authorized user accounts on a credit report, the resulting score is clearly very unrepresentative of any risk analysis of only the consumer being scored.  It includes several account histories that are not those of the scored consumer.

In any manual review of the consumer's credit report, the scoring is almost certain to raise concerns as to its value in assessing risk of only the scored consumer.

Removing individual AUs may either help or hinder the resulting three-digit score, but it will help in producing a "real" number that would be of some real value to the party assessing the risk analysis of the consumer.

Just as you are having concerns over the effect of each account on your score, so will a creditor in assessing its value to them as a lending tool.

[Anonymous]

Is there a reason why you are an AU on so many of her accounts?

As a very broad generalization, if her accounts are in worse standing than yours (higher utilization is a bad thing) it would probably be a good thing if you weren't associated with those accounts.  The only possible exception IMO would be if one of her accounts is significantly older than your oldest account.  If not, I'd have her drop you as an AU and your scores would likely react favorably.

[Anonymous]

The reason I'm on those cards is because her credit was much better then mine.  I hadn't used credit in some time and was trying to rebuild my credit.  I had gotten up to 700 before the utilization started to sky rocket.  One of the cards is my oldest though.  Should I keep that one and then get off the others which are my older ones as well.

[Anonymous]

I mean, is there any rule to dropping AUs then putting them back on?  Perhaps take yourself off of them and see how your credit score reacts.  Maybe just leave that oldest one in place first.  If your scores stay the same or even increase, you know not being associated with those AU accounts is the way to go.  If her utilization was in check no doubt they'd be helping you, but being an AU on accounts with 70%+ utilization IMO isn't doing you any good, especially if your utilization on your personal accounts is in a good place.

[RobertEG]

Use of AUs is primarily for consumers who are seeking lines of credit for which the creditor bases their determination primarily or solely upon a credit score.  That is a common process for lower limit cards where the risk is inherently lower.

As you move up the credit ladder and seek higher amounts of credit, the creditor will normally do a more thorough review.

If their manual review of your credit report shows the presence of any AU accounts, that tells them that the resulting score is not reflective of your own credit risk assessment.  They thus may not give as much weight to the score, or actually require removal of any AUs in order to then obtain a "real" score.

Once you begin to app for credit that is beyond the lower-tier building or rebuilding stage, the presence of 6 AU account is likely to have significant concern for the reviewing creditor.  Whether to keep them depends upon the type and level of review that will likely be conducted by the prospective creditor, and is hard to predict.

[Anonymous]

In short, it sounds to me like Robert is saying that the cons likely outweigh the pros at this point for the OP with respect to having so many AU accounts.

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

Just have your GF call the creditors and remove you as an AU.   Your credit reports will update and show that you were "terminated," which is what they call it and not a derogatory comment.   The balance on your reports will update to zero, even if she still has a balance.  The account remains on your reports and you get the benefit of the age of AU accounts for scoring.

If there's anything you don't like about the AU account on your report after it's been closed, just dispute it off as not responsible for this account and the CRAs will delete it.  

I have been through this many times now and it works fine.

And yes you can be added back as an AU and have it report again.  

[CJ7]

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

  The account remains on your reports and you get the benefit of the age of AU accounts for scoring.

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Unless it's Capital One, in which case the account will likely completely vanish.  Happened to me!