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Hi everyone,
I recently established a credit report. My goal is to get the premium cards (Chase Sapphire, AMEX, etc.) and I am wondering if paying for an AU credit repair service my account will raise my score. I have a thin file with low limits on my current account, so I keep on getting declined on the 5k minimum limit that the World MasterCard and Visa Signature require even though my score is decent. I have excellent control of my finances, have never kept a balance, and always pay on time. My stats are from Experian.com and Credit Karma.
Do you think being added on an AU on a 20k+ card that has been open for ~3 years will help?
EQ: 743, TU: 750, EX: 732
3 Open Accounts: Chase Freedom $2500, Discover $2300, TD Bank $1000. The Chase card is a family member's so I'm not sure why it falls on my report. Anyways, not sure what to think of that.
Average Age of Accounts: 11 months
Oldest Account: 14 months
Inquires: EQ: 2 / TU: 1 / EX: 3
Utiliazation ~1%
Last Inquiry was June 2017.
I'm new here so please take it easy on me Thanks y'all!
You are going to get shut down because paid AU accounts are a big no-no on here. But before you get shut down, no they are a horrible idea. Find a family member or a friend who has a very old account (grandma's Sears account opened in the 1960s) with a high limit and low utilization.
Your AAoA crossing the 1 year mark in another month will probably help you some. It could add some points to your scores, but more important it's simply a better "look" to lenders that you may be planning on apping with in the future like the ones you mentioned in the original post.
I'm not looking for a service here, so that's not an issue. Why would paying someone for an AU account be different for an AU account from friends or family? For what it's worth, I don't have anyone in the latter camp that would help me, hence why I'm asking about paid services.
Right, so would it be worth it?
You are already doing all the right things so the only thing left is time. Enter the credit Garden for a year and then see what your scores look like. It takes time to build a good credit score and everyone here has to go through that. There are many people here who would kill for your scores so just let nature take it's course and build your credit profile.
Becoming an AU on the account of a stranger is a highly contentious issue amongst scorers and creditors.
Years ago, it was regular practice for others to advertise and sell AUs on the net.
Many creditors and producers of scoring models balked at that practice, and proposals were made to actually eliminate any and all AUs.
Just google on authorized user piggy-backing for discussion of the long, prior history of this contentious practice.
Compromise was generally reached by creditors and scorers by limiting addition of AUs only to accounts of close family members, primarily to avoid ECOA issues relating to spousal credit.
You are currently likely only to obtain AUs based on authorizations from close family members.
Regardless of whether you actually obtain an AU, the value of any score boost will still depend upon whether or not the prospective creditor does a manual review of your credit report in their decision making.
Addition of an AU automatically means that any scoring will thereafter be based in part on credit history of another. A propspective creditor has no way to back out the effect of an included AU, and thus produce a score that is based only on your own credit history.
Thus, if a prospective creditor does a manual review and detects an AU in your report, they might choose to discount the value of the resulting score as not be representative of your own personal risk.
When rebuilding, a consumer is usually seeking lower levels of new credit for which the creditor may not do a more comprehensive manual review, and thus the inclusion of an AU may not be an issue. Thus, AUs can be useful when rebuilding.
However, if/when you move up the credit ladder and seek higher amounts of credit, such as a mortgage, a manual review becomes more likely, and thus presence of any AUs can become problematic.
Some mortgage lendors, for example, will specifically require removal of any AU accounts as part of their underwriting process, thus enabling them to get a "real" credit score.
Credit Karma scores are useless -- they're "for entertainment only" and may be significantly different than FICO8 scores. I assume Experian actually says "FICO8" near the score they gave you?
Use the Chase Prequalification tool every month https://www.chase.com/prequalified
Chase likes to see 1 year of history before opening the door. AU doesn't affect that, they want to see YOU having 1 year of good usage.
What's your reported utilization on the cards you have reported, including the AU?
I've checked the Chase Prequal tool several times - no offers. My total utilization is less than 1% of available credit, so it's very low. I'm aware that Chase requires history but if I was to get a Chase card it'd be a Sapphire Preferred or other premium card - and I will not get approved based on my credit profile (I've tried several times). My overall credit behavior is excellent. The problem is that I just have a thin file, and was be hoping that a AU might bump up all my stats.
Yes, the person I talked to said that we would do a three-way conference so that I was added on as a 'family member'. S/he presumably does this for many others, so the chance he would mess with his own credit and livelihood seems unlikely. I appreciate your comprehensive discourse on the AU topic, but at the end of the day I'm just looking for premium credit cards and am happy with max 10k CL's. So again, is paying for an AU credit boost worth it?