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Being added as a AU will help if the account is clean (no lates), has a low utilization, and has an age older than your AAoA.
The conflicting information likely came from early reports that Fico08 was not going to count AU any longer. This has been modified and Fico08 will apparently count AUs only if some connection exists between the individuals (spouse, family member etc). Of course we are still likely years away from Fico08 being used by the majority of lenders.
Nope! Although you are right in that some companies do not report AU, Discover is not one of them. They DO report AU a/cs. I personally never take those CSRs' opinions at face value. I'd do my own research and get multiple opinions. If you call back 4 or 5 different times, I'd bet that you'd receive conflicting information.
One thing Ive experienced in getting an AU to report is that the addresses HAVE TO match. This happened to be the case with all 3 CRAs.
Amex reports AU accounts. I asked them before we relocated and transfered our Amex to the U.S.in March 2009.
Their answer was:
However, the Additional Cardmember enjoys the benefits of sharing positive credit reporting, which can be removed anytime upon your request.
I'm an authorized user at the account of my spouse and we have it for about 14 years and I guess based on this reason my first credit score in the U.S. was 771 with Equifax