Question regarding AAoA

[Anonymous]

My oldest card is 3 plus years and new accounts are all under 8 months , If my wife added me as a AU on her Citi account which is about 15 years old , will that help and build up my AAoA ? Just a curious question , thanks for all the responses in advance .

[gdale6]

Yes but why muddy the waters with someone elses card the history will not be yours alone. Some lenders do discount AUs

[RobertEG]

It gives you a longer AAoA in the paper calculation, but it is a "phony" number.

As with any alteration of any credit scoring category by the inclusion of account information from the credit history of another, while it may be included in your score calcullation, it automaticaly makes your score no longer representative of your own credit risk.

If the party pulling your score does not do a manual review of your credit report (which is the case with many reviews done for lower levels of credit), they wont be aware that the score is not representative of only that consumer.

However, if the party also does a manual review of your credit report and sees an AU, they then are aware that the score they received is not representative of only that consumer.  They may choose to discount or disregard the score, or in the case of some mortgage lendors, require removal of the AU prior to their approval so that they can then get a "real" score.

Unless rebuilding, where manual reviews are not common and the score boost is all positive, it might be beneficial NOT to have an AU, even if it is providing some score boost.

[Anonymous]

Married couples add themselves as AU's all the time. Can't see any bank thinking that is suspicious or demanding wife remove her husband. I can see that reaction if the primary was someone more distant.

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

Yes, you should do it.  There is a lot of talk about lenders discounting reports with AU's on them, but I have yet to read a single post on any credit board where this has happened.  The score is not "phony" if it is impacted by AU accounts.  The score is what it is.  If FICO didn't want to count it, they wouldn't.  In fact at one point they stopped counting AU's, and reversed course.

If people want to keep spreading this fear, they should point out more than a couple of anecdotal examples.  

[RobertEG]

While "phoney" may imply prejudice, and thus might not be the best term, the fact remains that if an AU is included in a consumer's report, then their resulting score is not representative of only their own credit reisk.  That is not conjecture or fear-mongering, it is a fact. 

As to showing that the scoring effect of AUs are of concern to lendors, the forums have been replete over the last decade with instances of mortgage lendors requiring removal of AUs as part of the approval process so that they can then obtain a score representative of the consumer's own risk analysis.

Debating the issue is not my desire or intent. 

One can make their own decision as to whether they want the history of another impacting their score.

However, being aware of the possible concern of creditors when they do a manual review is something to consider.

[Anonymous]

If you had your uncle's card on your report I can see requests to remove it, but a spouse? The spouse is going to be in the mortgage application in any case, so how is it unrepresentative?

Can anyone give an example of a lender asking for a SPOUSE to remove them as an AU for a mortgage?

[Anonymous]

Hi Canadian.  It's not uncommon for a mortgage lender to choose the lower of two scores when two people are buying a house jointly.  (The lender takes the middle score of each person and then the lower of the two middle scores.) 

If Susan and Bob are buying a house and Susan has great credit (800) and Bob has bad (600), then Susan adding Bob as an AU on one of her old cards could mask his otherwise bad score, and that would interfere with that assessment.  That's one reason manual underwriters will sometimes want AU-free reports.

To the OP (jad051015):

You ask about how the AU would affect your AAoA.  A 15 year clean account would improve it some (you can do the math yourself -- if you don't know how to calculate AAoA that's something you should definitely google and learn how to do).  The scoring factor that the AU account would help the most is not AAoA but the age of oldest account.

The particular language you use was "build up."  Building up your AAoA is a great thing to do, but personally I'd associate that with taking steps to gradually increase a thing through disciplined work over time.  The AU effect is more of an instant thing.

My own thinking is that AUs are great for people who are starting to rebuild or who have only a few accounts all of which are very young in age..  If you decide you want to do it, fine.  But you may want to think of it as a short term solution for to help you get your first 3-4 credit cards.  In the medium to long term you should be finding ways to improve your credit profile (letting accounts age, etc.) so that it can stand on its own.

Final thought: if you go the AU route, make sure that your wife keeps her utilization of that card very low.

[takeshi74]

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

The score is what it is.  If FICO didn't want to count it, they wouldn't. 

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Correct but a creditor's underwriting and FICO scoring are two entirely different things.  Scores are used by creditors in their decision but it's never just about the score.