Do you share an address? Due to abuse with authorized users, each of the credit bureaus have anti-abuse algorithms that will completely discard AU accounts. If adding as an AU on Amex, do note that AUs no longer inherit the full account history and the opening date of the account will be listed as the date they were added as an AU; depending on a person's credit profile, that could actually do more harm than good, at least in the short term.
@K-in-Boston So if you share an address with your child and add them as an authorized user, this won't work to get them jump-started on a credit score?
If I change their address, will that fix the issue?
No, not sharing an address is one factor that will sometimes (not always) cause an anti-abuse flag to be raised.
Thanks for the clarification. If my sons have a different last name than I do, would that be a problem?
@Anonymous wrote:
@designated_knitter wrote:Thanks for the clarification. If my sons have a different last name than I do, would that be a problem?
My SO has a different last name than me (not, married), and the cards count in the algo. We do share an address and have been listed as "co-applicant/spouse" on CRs. Not sure if both are necessary, but worked, and I am thinking address or name may be of inportance. I mean, people do get remarried/divorced or legally change their name (my neice changed her last name legally), so I am not sure last name being the same is a requirement.
Same last name is def not a requirement. My spouse and I have different last names, too, and our AUs also count.
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure if I am the only one experiencing this-
I added a sibling to two credit cards as an authorized user. Cap1 V1 6k and WF Visa Platinum 1.5k, which should help him as a 23 year old Master's student.
However I am noticing that the cards only reflect on his EQ scores when he pulls up credit karma. I know the scores on CK are not as relevant here but the reporting of the accounts at least is.
Any reason why both Cap1 and WF don't report for him as an authorized user on TU? If so, what would I have to do to get them to reflect?
Side note: There is a chance he becomes an AU on my Amex card but I don't want to waste the time if it will not impact his TU scores.
Any insight on this is appreciated, thanks FICO fam!
From my understanding, and of course someone chime in if I am wrong, is that when you add someone as an AU to an Amex account, the date is from current, not backdated to your account opening, so age will probably not benefit them regarding Amex AU.
This is correct. Amex does not backdate AU accounts, so if you add someone to your Amex they don't get the benefit of the account history and it counts as a new account for them.
Unfortunately, we don't really know all of the factors that may go into the anti-abuse algorithms. Sometimes a differing surname may cause it, sometimes a differing address may cause it, and sometimes it happens even if both are the same. That came about due to "transactions," for lack of a better word - but something we'll not get into due to the TOS, involving AU accounts.
FWIW I seem to have some of Player 2's accounts that I am an AU on that fell victim to the algorithm on EQ (and EQ only) a few years back even with both a shared surname and address. A couple of them will reappear for a month or two and then be gone for a long time, some disappeared forever, and some are just weird like Chase - a circa 2017 CSP is almost always reporting, but a circa 1994 CFU was doing the disappearing/reappearing cycle for a while but now hasn't reported once on EQ since around the end of 2018. Even with those accounts falling off (I think 3 out of 8 AU accounts are currently reporting on EQ), EQ is still usually my highest score in each of the models. If I actually needed those accounts reporting, that could certainly be an issue.