Does AU Affect Credit Score?

[Anonymous]

I was just wondering if I was added as an AU on someone's credit card, will this help increase/decrease my credit score?

[MarineVietVet]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I was just wondering if I was added as an AU on someone's credit card, will this help increase/decrease my credit score?

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Yes it can help you IF the account is older than any of yours, IF the payment history is long and clean, IF the utilization is very low, and IF it will 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. So it also has the potential to hurt your score.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802, EQ - 10/10-813, TU - 10/10-774

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

[Anonymous]

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@MarineVietVet wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

I was just wondering if I was added as an AU on someone's credit card, will this help increase/decrease my credit score?

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Yes it can help you IF the account is older than any of yours, IF the payment history is long and clean, IF the utilization is very low, and IF it will 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. So it also has the potential to hurt your score.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802, EQ - 10/10-813, TU - 10/10-774

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

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So from what you're say, bascially an AU account acts like a normal credit card account with potential to hurt or bump your score? Because I heard the newest version of FICO doesn't account for AU account. Maybe I'm wrong though.

[laz98]

yes, just a normal account that reports the same as if it were your own, except it says "authorized user" (not all report this way but some do)

[smc733]

Most report as "Authorized User".  Take for case, me, I'm an AU on clean accounts from 1981, 2000, and 2002, started my own account building at 18 in 2009/2010.

When I applied for HSBC/BB Store Card, got stuck with a low limit (compared to my BofA Personal, Citi Personal), and tried to play up the angles.  They're wise to it, lenders detect the AU accounts and throw them away, so they're not really helpful for getting credit cards.

For mortgage lenders that determine your APR based on FICO scores, they're still useful, and the reason why FICO 2008 had to re-include AU accounts back to scoring.

[llecs]

Ditto. FICO 08 still factors in AUs, though I hear they somehow exclude some AUs based on non-related parties, but I can't be for sure about that. In any case, lenders that use FICO08 are few and far between at this point. Another reason why FICO wanted it initially dropped was because lenders were taking a big hit due to piggybacking. People were falsifying their reports with purchased TLs that weren't even theirs and defaulting due to not being credit-worthy. I listened to a FICO webinar once and the speaker had cited some law somewhere that they interpreted as being against the law block all AUs (TILA? FCBA? Can't remember). Vantage blocks AUs, but FICO doesn't fully block them.