WILL AU HELP?

[Anonymous]

1. Im trying to raise my credit score (555 TU) and I have a friend that is willing to add me to her CC that she has had over 5 years with no missed payments and she has a great score in the 700's her utilazation is between 30-50% a month but shes never missed payments.  I currently only have a auto loan for 2 months and 1 secured CC for about 5 months with a limit of 500 and Ive kept it below 9% utit and PIF everymonth. So my credit history is short so will it help to be added?

2. Also I found a local bank that I can get another secured cc that only does a soft inquiry, do I need another card for another Tradeline?

Im working on DV on the baddies but thought this might help while Im working on those.

thanks in advance for any help!!!!

[daisyduke]

In regards to you being an AU on your friends card - you need to know 1) how long this person has had the card (sometimes if its a lot older than your credit, it can help with history 2) does the issuer report AU's  esp. if they are not at the same address, they might not - some cards do not ask for social security numbers, but they end up getting reported via address matching so it may not help at all if they don't ask for your SS and you don't share the same mailing address...3) i'd have to think about the higher utilization, running it up to 50% probably won't be that great for your utilitization...let us know which card it is and someone can chime in to see if the card reports AU's and so forth.

I thought I read that FICO scoring likes to see two bank cards reporting on your credit report, so getting another secured may be the way to go.

Keep up the good work.

[Anonymous]

thank you so much for the fast response, this website is the best!

1, She has had the card for over 5 years. Its a sears mastercard, she said its not even close to limit, below 30% ( I miss understood her at first) Does sears mastercard report AU's.

And my average tradeline shows 4 months.

2.  I will another card then. Does it matter about the amount of just keeping util low?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

thank you so much for the fast response, this website is the best!

1, She has had the card for over 5 years. Its a sears mastercard, she said its not even close to limit, below 30% ( I miss understood her at first) Does sears mastercard report AU's.

And my average tradeline shows 4 months.

2.  I will another card then. Does it matter about the amount of just keeping util low?

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FICO only needs one bank/national cc.  You're fine with one card as long as it is in that category - bank or national cc.  Who is your current card with?  Doesn't matter what the CL is - just keep the utilization low (or zero with one).

[Anonymous]

IT is with a credit union. A local small bank offers a secured with only a soft inquiry. Is a credit union cc ok, or do I need a bank CC? Ive keep my util below 9%

Do your think the AU will help since I only have 4 months history?

does anyone know if sears mastercard reports AU?

This website Is so great, thank you for everyones help. I feel so lost with all of this

[Anonymous]

also would a secured loan help?

 When i went to creditkarma.com for my score it gives me a letter grade for each catagory.... ccu, on time payments, history, accounts, hard inquiries. I have an A for the util, on time history, and a letter B grade for hard inquirys. But I have an F for length of history and for number of accounts  

trying to raise my score to 650 for a home in 6 months...... if possible.

[Anonymous]

Ignore credit karma's advice.  They are offering you FAKO scores and the advice that goes along with them is not necessarily helpful- and often downright harmful to your FICO score.

Have you pulled your report here?

It will give you your FICO score along with what's helping your score and what's hurting your score.  It also has a simulator that will estimate the impact to your score if you take certain actions i.e. open an account.  Google myfico discount codes, and you only need to pull one report, but you need to see what your real score is and what FICO recommends.  That's one of the most vital things you can do right now - rebuilding without knowing what your foundation is can be very frustrating.

The CU card does not count as a bank/national cc.  So opening a secured CARD at a bank will help your FICO - quite a bit!  Does the bank that offers the card report to all 3 CRAs.  What bank is it?

[Anonymous]

good to know! I was thinking about getting my score here but do I need to get the scorewatch or which of the four they offer? My credit score when I got my car 2 months ago was 565 lender pull.

The bank that offers the secured card is bank independent its a local bank in al. It does report to all three and it doesnt report secure and no hard inquiry with an option to unsecure after one month of on time payments. Interest rate was 29% i believe but i intend to PIF like im doing with my other card (thanks to advice on here, many thanks!)

Do you think the AU will help since my history is so short?

[RobertEG]

The AU will help until it hurts.  If the cardholder misses a payment, or drives up uti, then it can hurt.  So it is a risk

Currently, many creditors are restricting grant of AU status to direct family members.  In the past, the use of AU was sold to anyone on the net for a fee, and gained a really bad reputation.  Fair Isaac even, for a time, proposed the elimination of AU status accounts for their credit scoring.  They have backed off from this drastic approach, but many are putting restrictions on the grant of AU status.

First, have your friend contact the OC and get their policy on grant of AU status.

[Anonymous]

thank you roberteg! She called last night and at first they didnt ask for my ss# but she said I was going to be charging and helping to pay the bill so she wanted to make sure I got the credit for it on the credit report so could they take my social and they said sure and took my ss# and dob and they said they could only send the card to her address not mine though. (which is not a problem, because I dont have to actual use the card right?) So Im going to sign up for one of the credit monitoring and hopefully it will show up!!!

Do you recommend the Fico standard or Score Watch for me to monitor? Im not sure which I need ( I dont want to go by creditkarma since I was told its not acurate)

Also it was mentioned I need a national bank Secured card would help raise my score. Will a local bank help or does it need to be a bigger bank ( the small bank doesnt pull hard inquiry, so I thought that was good)

you guys are the best, I actually feel like I might have a real chance of pulling my score up with all this help. Then one day hopefully I can pass that advice on....many thanks