Piggybacking question

[Cdnewmanpac]

Ive spent the last year and a half trying to rebuild my credit (592 from credit union pull 7/10). I have no current derogatories, all past collections are paid and I've been making on time payments on everything (old mortgage, car loan, student loans) since 2007. In the past year, I've gotten a wells Fargo secured card with a 1k limit, a 360k mortgage (also wells Fargo), a cap one unsecured with a $750 limit and 12k in student loans that are currently in deferral (in grad school). While my credit reports/scores always list my history of derogatories as my biggest negative, they all list the second negative as too many recent accounts and the third as low credit limits. My wife has offered to add me as an authorized user to one of her cards to see if that improves things. My choices are: citi dividend card with 5k balance, 25k limit, used weekly and opened in 1996 or wells Fargo visa with zero balance, 16k limit, used twice in last 2 years and opened in 1997. My wife has never missed a payment on either card. Any thoughts on whether it is better to be on a card with lots of activity, but higher utilization or almost no activity, but low utilization? If we go the wells Fargo route, the plan was for me to use it once a month for the electric bill and pay in full each statement. If we go the citi route, I would not use the card. Open to suggestions, thanks. Chris

[MarineVietVet]

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@Cdnewmanpac wrote:
Ive spent the last year and a half trying to rebuild my credit (592 from credit union pull 7/10). I have no current derogatories, all past collections are paid and I've been making on time payments on everything (old mortgage, car loan, student loans) since 2007. In the past year, I've gotten a wells Fargo secured card with a 1k limit, a 360k mortgage (also wells Fargo), a cap one unsecured with a $750 limit and 12k in student loans that are currently in deferral (in grad school). While my credit reports/scores always list my history of derogatories as my biggest negative, they all list the second negative as too many recent accounts and the third as low credit limits. My wife has offered to add me as an authorized user to one of her cards to see if that improves things. My choices are: citi dividend card with 5k balance, 25k limit, used weekly and opened in 1996 or wells Fargo visa with zero balance, 16k limit, used twice in last 2 years and opened in 1997. My wife has never missed a payment on either card. Any thoughts on whether it is better to be on a card with lots of activity, but higher utilization or almost no activity, but low utilization? If we go the wells Fargo route, the plan was for me to use it once a month for the electric bill and pay in full each statement. If we go the citi route, I would not use the card. Open to suggestions, thanks. Chris

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Welcome to myFICO.

Being added as an AU can be beneficial but certain criteria need to be met before this will help you.

1. The account needs to be older than any of yours (older than your current AAoA is even better).

2. The payment history needs to be long and clean.

3. The utilization has to be very, very low.

4.  It has to report to the CRA's. Not all cards will do this. You need to ask the company first.

You will inherit the entire history of this account. One caveat however; if this account starts to go south your credit will be affected as well. Keep that in mind.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

[Cdnewmanpac]

As I said, there are no negatives on either account and both are much older than my AAoA. They are older than any open accounts I have, though I have a paid off mortgage and car loan that are from 1994. Per my wife's conversations with Citi and Wells Fargo, both state that they report AUs. So it sounds like from your answer, I'd be better off with the low activity, but zero balance card than with the higher balance, active card. Since the Wells Fargo card utilization is rarely greater than 3%, it sounds like that should work? Thanks.

[laz98]

I would go with the Wells Fargo.