EX Fico8 : Short account history, Authorized Users

[Anonymous]

Been trying to get better at understanding my scores lately and transitioning from rewards to just maximizing my score. Previously, I've been primarily using Vantage/Credit Karma scores, so it's been a little bit of a shock to see the changes looking at FICO (what banks actually care about). I decided to focus on Experian FICO8, since it seems like that's the one most pulled by banks I'm interested in.

The first thing I'm noticing is that only my own cards are showing up, I have been an authorized user on 2 parents' cards for at least 4 more years than my history (and they have been opened for about 20 years). However, I'm noticing that it doesn't show up at all under the accounts. Is this normal? Do all FICO scores disregard authorized users?

Second, what I was more concerned about was the ramifications on my age of accounts, as instead of 20+ year history, now I have a 4yr5mo history. The only reason code I'm given that's hurting my score is "short account history". Rest of the summary is 796 score, 4 accounts, 3 inq, 3% utilization, 0 missed payments.

My main questions remaining are if it is known in this community what the thresholds for this score's length of credit are. Any other advice on taking my score to the 825+ level would be greatly appreciated too!

Thanks for all your wisdom here!

[Anonymous]

Where are you getting your scores? What cards are you an authorized user on?

[Anonymous]

I just accessed the score through Discover's free FICO 8 EX score. 

I've been an authorized user for about 9 years on a Bank of America and a Wells Fargo credit card (parents), which have been open for ~20+ years. They show up for credit karma / vantage scores, but not here apparently.

[Anonymous]

Both of those should show up on Experian, I believe. Maybe some members who have those cards can chime in to confirm?

If they do report to Experian as I think, you need to investigate this further. You may have a split file at Experian. That’s a occurrence where some accounts may be on one file while others are on a separate file and they have to be merged.

Also to answer your question, all versions of FICO prior to FICO 08 fully count authorized user accounts. Starting with the 08 version they implemented an algorithm to discriminate between fraudulent AU accounts. No one knows exactly how it works, so sometimes they count and sometimes they don’t, depending on whether they’re flagged.

I should also mention there is debate as to how much they help, 08 forward.

Do you have any open loans? Or closed loans?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Both of those should show up on Experian, I believe. Maybe some members who have those cards can chime in to confirm?

If they do report to Experian as I think, you need to investigate this further. You may have a split file at Experian. That’s a occurrence where some accounts may be on one file while others are on a separate file and they have to be merged.

Also to answer your question, all versions of FICO prior to FICO 08 fully count authorized user accounts. Starting with the 08 version they implemented an algorithm to discriminate between fraudulent AU accounts. No one knows exactly how it works, so sometimes they count and sometimes they don’t, depending on whether they’re flagged.

I should also mention there is debate as to how much they help, 08 forward.

Do you have any open loans? Or closed loans?

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Ahh yes, that's so strange. If anyone else accesses their Experian FICO 08 score for free through Discover's website (https://csp.discover.com/free-credit-score/index.html)and you have AU cards, I'd really appreciate to know if your AU are listed with their history counted.

I have no open/closed loans; only revolving credit cards. Through credit karma, all of my AU are listed, but CK only shows TU and EQ. 

Thanks for all the info so far!

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Ahh yes, that's so strange. If anyone else accesses their Experian FICO 08 score for free through Discover's website (https://csp.discover.com/free-credit-score/index.html)and you have AU cards, I'd really appreciate to know if your AU are listed with their history counted.

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Discover's creditscorecard.com site chooses not to display AU accounts in their "Total Accounts" tally, but the accounts ARE still on the report they pull, and ARE counted (barring triggering the anti-abuse rules) in the score displayed.

Why don't you sign up directly with Experian for their free monthly report and FICO 8 score?

If you sign up through the phone app (iOS or Android) you get both the report and the score monthly - and the same login then works on experian.com from a computer to get both.  I believe if you sign up on the website first, then you currently only get the report... go figure.

[Anonymous]

My report through Discover shows only 4 cards when I had 6 at the time of their last pull. All 6 are reporting to Experian - I've confirmed that through the free annual credit report site and credit.com. And I'm the primary user on all these accounts.

[Anonymous]

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@iv wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Ahh yes, that's so strange. If anyone else accesses their Experian FICO 08 score for free through Discover's website (https://csp.discover.com/free-credit-score/index.html)and you have AU cards, I'd really appreciate to know if your AU are listed with their history counted.

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Discover's creditscorecard.com site chooses not to display AU accounts in their "Total Accounts" tally, but the accounts ARE still on the report they pull, and ARE counted (barring triggering the anti-abuse rules) in the score displayed.

Why don't you sign up directly with Experian for their free monthly report and FICO 8 score?

If you sign up through the phone app (iOS or Android) you get both the report and the score monthly - and the same login then works on experian.com from a computer to get both.  I believe if you sign up on the website first, then you currently only get the report... go figure.

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Ah, thanks for that info; are there any pros/cons to also activating the Experian thing? I know soft pulls don't matter, but there's still something psychological for me with just opening all these apps (credit karma, all the banks', creditmatch, etc etc), feel like I should limit it for some reason, haha. 

...also does anyone have any insights on the thresholds for the account age? At what lengths is "short account history" no longer a con? Or at what point can I expect a couple points boost cause it's less impactful? I'm surprised at 4.5yrs, it's the most important factor weighing my score down..

[Anonymous]

You can activate as many as you want. They have no effect on your credit. I have almost all the free credit reporting apps and websites to monitor as much as I can. Soft pulls don't do anything. Alot of companys will run soft pulls on you to see if they prequalify you for stuff. You could have hundreds of soft pulls ran on you without you knowing it. So nothing happeneds

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Ah, thanks for that info; are there any pros/cons to also activating the Experian thing? I know soft pulls don't matter, but there's still something psychological for me with just opening all these apps (credit karma, all the banks', creditmatch, etc etc), feel like I should limit it for some reason, haha. 

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No reason not to...  Doesn't affect your credit directly in any way.

You might not bother opening multiple redundant free monitoring accounts (CreditKarma and CreditSesame and WalletHub.... etc), or you might not want to provide yourself as marketing fodder to all of them (remember, the free ones are making money selling you to their real customers).

But opening a free Experian account for the monthly Experian Report/Score, or a free TrueIdentity (Transunion) account for daily Transunion reports (no scores)... absolutely no reason not to.  (It's not like you're giving them any info they don't already have on you!)  And paired with CreditKarma (just for the reports, not the scores) for Equifax access, that set is a reasonable minimum to get fairly regular access to all three reports and a single FICO 8 score for free.

There are other free or very low-cost options that other people here will be happy to tell you about as well. (I'm sure they'll chime in any minute now!)

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@Anonymous wrote:

...also does anyone have any insights on the thresholds for the account age? At what lengths is "short account history" no longer a con?

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Never!

Really. Never. With a 23 year-old oldest tradeline, and an 8+ year AAoA (and basically perfect scores), I still see "Length of time revolving accounts have been established" as a score factor.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Or at what point can I expect a couple points boost cause it's less impactful? I'm surprised at 4.5yrs, it's the most important factor weighing my score down..

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There are various known (and guessed-at) breakpoints between 1 and 8 years, for Average Age of Accounts, Age of Oldest Account, and Age of Youngest Account.  But unless you are continuously opening new accounts, it's a slow but steady tick upwards, with a much smaller effect than many other scoring factors (high utilization or any negative items, for instance).