AU account helping or hurting? HELP!

[Rebuild22]

Hi all, my mom added me as a AU to an account of hers when my credit was a wreck and I was just starting but now that I put some hard work into rebuilding I'm not sure if it's helping me or hurting me. Just in case it makes a difference the main goal is to hit 580-620 mortgage rate to be able to buy a home.

Here are my current scores and accounts

FICO 8 & mortgage scores (these used to be in the 500s & 400s so eventhough it doesn't look like much it is for me)

EQ: 602 521

TS: 624 573

EX: 626 568

Revolving accounts/Balance-Limit/Age/Lates

Credit One (1/3) $249-$800/5mo/0

Credit One (2/3) $0-$800/1y10mo/0

Credit One (3/3) $7-$550/3y2mo/0

Armed forces 0-$750/28mo/30 days on 07/21

Capital One (1/2) 0-$1500/ 13y10mo/30 days late 1 in 17, 3 in 18, 1 in 19. 60 days late 2 in 18, 1 in 19. 90 and 120 days late in 2019. Last late 07/2019

Capital One (2/2) $2-$600/5y5mo/ 30 days late 3 in 18, 1 in 2019. 60 days late 1 in 18, 2 in 19. 90 days late 2 in 19. Last late 07/19

TBOM/Verve/ContFinance $8-$750/2y1mo/ 30 days late on 01/21 and 07/21

TBOM/Total Visa: $6-$300/2y3mo/ 30 days late on 08/22 and 08/21

Chime/Stride bank $0/2y4mo/0

Macys/Citibank (AU ACCOUNT) $5,927-$10.000/17Y6mo/0. This is a charge card but it shows in revolving, I'm just not sure how much it is affecting my score, it does have 7 years of paid on time history and never missed a payment which I think helps in my case but that utilization is killing me and my mom cannot really pay it off. Not sure if I should remove it, leave it or maybe try to pay it off?

Baddies:

OpenSky- $118 charge off, waiting on account investigation. This was a 2k secured credit line that I closed, there wasn't a balance but they kept it open and tackled fees and late fees. Hoping this will be fixed.

Fingerhut- $483 charge off, was paid in full and should be removed shortly (NY law)

Comenity Bank paid charge off, should fall off tomorrow.

Installment loans

Moneylion- $213-500, this has been fully paid but hasn't reported yet./11mo

Opploans- $3,945-4000, this loan has only reported for a month on 08/22 and hasn't updated.

13 closed all paid on time.

1 auto-loan charge off, paid off in settlement.

Collections

1 open unpaid collection account that was open on 08/22 but first delinquency was 12/18, will be removed by monday.

Any advice will be appreciated!

[PNWRambler]

I would probably get rid of the AU at this point. Charge cards are not supposed to show up as part of your overall utilization, that's part of the benefit of using one. But you have enough accounts and some that are 10+ years old. You don't really need the AU account anymore. At this point you'll get the best results in score increase from gardening and getting as close to AZEO as possible.

[RSX]

Definitely drop the AU acct - it is hurting you at this point 

I am deferring to the answer right below me.  

[Remedios]

Utilization on AU account is high, but given the rest of your credit report, do not close it. 

You have unpaid charge offs, removing AU account will tank them further.

Limits on charged off accounts are excluded from aggregate utilization calculations,but balances are not. 

You have a chunky mess there, don't make it worse. 

Also, pay/settle those charge offs. 

[Rebuild22]

Thanks for the reply! Not sure if this got lost with so much information but they are paid off.

These are the charge offs:

Fingerhut: Paid in full just waiting to report and will be removed

Comenity bank: Paid charge off, i got an alert that it was removed from TS today hopefully it will be removed tomorrow from EQ and EX.

Westlake, car loan, paid off (settled)

OpenSky this is the only one that I haven't paid yet because they opened an investigation. I closed this account back in 2018 with enought left that I should have gotten money back. They just kept tackling late payments and fees and then charged it off, there is an account investigation currently going, it's only $118, I don't want to pay it and cement a charge off that shouldn't be.

Would your advice still be the same? I don't think it's affecting my credit card utilization but it is affecting my revolving utilization according to what I'm seeing in my reports.

[FireMedic1]

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@Rebuild22 wrote:

Thanks for the reply! Not sure if this got lost with so much information but they are paid off.

These are the charge offs:

Fingerhut: Paid in full just waiting to report and will be removed

Comenity bank: Paid charge off, i got an alert that it was removed from TS today hopefully it will be removed tomorrow from EQ and EX.

Westlake, car loan, paid off (settled)

OpenSky this is the only one that I haven't paid yet because they opened an investigation. I closed this account back in 2018 with enought left that I should have gotten money back. They just kept tackling late payments and fees and then charged it off, there is an account investigation currently going, it's only $118, I don't want to pay it and cement a charge off that shouldn't be.

Would your advice still be the same? I don't think it's affecting my credit card utilization but it is affecting my revolving utilization according to what I'm seeing in my reports.

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Which charge off will remain out of the purge law? Westlake says paid off. Then settled? Which is it? Was it a repo or just paid off.

[Remedios]

@Rebuild22  you cannot "leave enough money" in secured card. What you used for deposit is NOT used as payment.

You still have to pay off account at the time it's closed, then you get your deposit back.  

So, if you had $200 deposit and $118 balance, you had to pay $118. It's not 200-118= left over, it's a charge off for $118 

I guess wait and see what "investigation" yields 

[Rebuild22]

I apologize for the confusion. Westlake will remain until next year, it was a charge off (no repo) and it is marked as paid settled for less than the full amount.

[Rebuild22]

While I understand what you are telling me, I'm just relying what I was told on the phone way back when. I found my last payment which was a phone payment in 10/2018. This was a 2k line when I closed it there was an overage which I paid to get it bellow 1900 (the balance is being reported for 2118) and close it off, I paid $222. I confimed with both the collection agency and several reps that the charge off is just for fees and not for charges made to the card, apparently they added over $300 in fees.

I'm not sure if when you close the account it's different but nonetheless the issue is they didn't close it and just added on fees upon fees for months and charged it off on 01/2019, the payment from October is not even being reported. 

I did request the statements today from 07/18-12/19 and will go from there. 

When all is said and done even if Opensky remains (I'll pay it off if no other option) and the onle 2 that will remain will be then OpenSky and Westlake.