AU Utilization question

[califguy]

Hello all,

I've scoured the internet (and this forum especially) about the impact of AU balances on FICO scores. I use the myfico monitoring with 3B reports each month. Everything that I've read says that me being an AU on my wife's cards should have an impact on my score. We've been paying her accounts down fairly aggressively and it's been obviously reflected in her scores, but doesn't seem to impact mine. It's difficult to tell, of course, because the alerts aren't SUPER clear/helpful.

When I get those scores (from myfico), it specifically states that AU information is not included. It says "Authorized user accounts aren't considered in the calculation of this attribute." Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Read the Scoring Primer linked at the top of my signature it will explain it.

[califguy]

Thanks for the reply. I had already read the primer and found lots of great things. I guess I must be missing something. I didn't see anything that addresses the disclaimer from myfico about not including balances for authorized users and not seeing any score changes.

My wife's score has skyrocketed relatively speaking because of how much we paid off. 

[Anonymous]

Right but you asked about the effects upon score And the Primer explains it: if they all report zero you suffer a penalty, if they’re counting in versions eight or nine. But, they count on the mortgage scores, no matter what.

As for the disclaimer of they’re simply telling you that their frontend does not include metrics from AU accounts. Now, that doesn’t mean the algorithm is or is not taking them into account.

What else would you like to know?

[Anonymous]

Other than that, if they’re counting, they’re just like any other card; they count towards utilisation and age, etc...