Not another authorized user question!

[Anonymous]

Yes, I know, not another authorized user question. But this concerns which models factor (even in a reduced way) for being a spouse or child while residing at the exact same address as the person with stellar credit. She bought a 1 year old Buick cash as she had her scores of 803, 810, & 813 in Feb of this year.

I finally got my mom to add my father (her husband) and myself to her four following cards:
Another Chase Slate of almost 29k with perfect pays virtually no utilization at all opened in 4/84
A BOA MC from 1998 for 2.5k
another BOA VISA for 2.5k from 2003
& finally a PNC Visa card from 2008 for 7,5k

We all live in the same house and have been here for 35 plus years.

My question is won't my father get the best grafting as an authorized user, since he is the spouse? I assume I will get some as the son whom has the same address, but not as much.

My father has heavy utilization on personal cards as a contractor. We are chipping away at them as we speak. We want to get them down and be able to get a balance transfer card at 0% or something low. My dad also has no derogs at all on the report either, so chipping away and having the extra slack of utilization should help.

What models are most generous for him and which are most restrictive? Same goes for me? I assume TU08 scoffs at AU? 

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that relationship to the account holder doesn't factor into it, but CRAs match up certain things (last name/address) to determine if it factors into the score. Some lenders (usually mortgage) will ignore AU accounts unless you can show proof that you're the primary account caretaker.

I'm certainly not an expert - that's just my understanding of it.

[Anonymous]

Only the fico 8 credit models ding you for credit potentially for au. That would be tu08 for example. Fico 8 models are not in common use yet for credit cards and basically not all for mortgages. In any case, fico 8 originally did not take au into account, but uproar that between card act and fico 8 would mean no credit for stay at home spouses made them change fico 8. It now takes au into account but discounts au usage if formula determines you are "piggybacking". It is unclear how it determines this or how much you get dinged. Address or is it number of cards. Who knows. You can only experiment and see. Easiest way is to get Walmart card to get free monthly tu08 score and see. In terms of your father's issue. My advice is to add him to 3 cards with highest limit and little utilization. Work on getting your mom's cards credit lines up on the au cards. Then assuming your dad's scores justify it, go for some business credit cards that don't report on personal credit reports unless it is negative. This way it is less of an issue for him in the future.

[RobertEG]

Unless a decision on the grant of credit is for, example, a secured card, or for a relatively small amount, most creditors will conduct a manual review of the consumer's credit report as part of their decision making.  Credit is not always granted slavishly based only on a three-digit number.

The extent to which they will accept the value of a FICO score that is not based on your own personal credit history is certainly up to them.

If they see the presency of AU accounts in the credit report, there is simply no way they can exclude that information and produce a FICO score that represents only the credit history of that consumer.  Presence of AU history of another in your credit file may result in your FICO score being discounted in their decision-making.