New to MyFICO, I have a question...

[Anonymous]

I've been lurking since I want to purchase a house later in the year and I'm learning alot here on the forums. The only 2 FICO scores I have are TU: 626 and EQ: 608 as I have the monitoring services for those. After pulling my credit and going to a loan officer I was told that me not having ANY revolving debt was hurting me since I didnt have any credit cards. She suggested that I get a Kohls card since she didnt feel I would be refused and of course only spend about $50 and make payments on it and then buy something else small and do the same.  My wife had her EQ score and it was over 30 points higher than me because she has 2 small credit cards.  They carry high balances and the FICO simulator said her score would go between 680 and 710 if she paid the balances down. She has never had a late payment on them and is in good standing. My question is, would it benefit my credit rating to get added as an authorized user to one or both of those accounts?  Other than her 2 credit cards and a medical collection I have , we share the same info on our reports (2 active auto loans and past joint auto loans). I'm trying to be careful before I do anything that will drop my score any further.

[WannaHouse]

It will help to be added as a AU. Also, if the cards are not new, it helps even more. The other thing that will help is to pay her cards down to about 10% utility.

It wouldn't hurt to get a Kohls either. 

[Anonymous]

The only difference in being added as AU and getting your own is when you are added as AU you don't get an inquiry and even though your AAoA is affected, it may not hurt your AAoA much if the account is older.

However, know that the bad comes with the good. Meaning it will report exactly on your report the same as it does her, high util and everything.

FICO likes to see less than half your accounts reporting a balance and your individual and overall util less than 9%.

IMO, if you can be added as AU on good revolving accounts, I would do that rather than applying for new accounts just before purchasing a house.

Is the medical collection the only negative you have?

Have you read the HIPPA process?

[Anonymous]

Well the accounts she has are 2 years old and have never been late, I just wasnt a fan of credit cards and never got one. I plan on getting added as an AU next month when we get the util below 10%. I just got this Kohls card and havent used it yet but if I can get her good history reporting on my credit, then that sounds like a good additional plan since I help pay the bills. I never realized how much I was hurting myself by not having any credit cards.

Yes I have read about the HIPPA process and as soon as I secure the funds to pay the debt I'm going to start that proccess and send out the Pre-HIPPA letters. On my EQ report, I have 2 medical collections and on my TU I have 6 (including the 2 that EQ shows). All of these are from 2 surgeries I had with the oldest being from 04 and the most recent being from 07. Oddly enough, TU shows more collections but the score is higher which is fine by me.   

I'll keep everyone posted on how this affects my scores.

Message Edited by Smokin01GT on 01-17-2009 04:44 PM

[Anonymous]

Good luck!