Re: Remove myself as an Authorized User?

Anonymous · ‎12-31-2008

Hello all,

I'm sorry if this has been touched on before...I'm new and couldn't find a response to my question already posted.

I am an authorized user on my mother's credit cards. She had one late payment on one card which the Credit Check said is hurting my score. I thought it wouldn't matter..but two of the three companies are much lower than the third, which doesn't have that card on my account.

I have two cards that are "authorized user" with her that date from 1991, one of which is the 30 day late payment card. However, there is another card that dates from the same time with no late payments.

Normally, I wouldn't care that much but my fiance and I are looking to buy a house in about 8 months and I was wondering if I should have her take me off that card to boost my scores up, as otherwise there are NO missed/late payments on record. I really don't want to pay more for a house because of her 30 day late payment (which was jan, 2006, if it matters).

Can y'all advise me on how this one card is affecting me (and why) and if I should remove it now, in order to get 8 months without it before we apply for a mortgage or if it matters enough to boost my score?

I don't know my fiance's scores, but I assume they are close to or better than mine as I have student loans and he doesn't. (Also, a quick side note, two places include my private loans, one doesn't...I'm planning on paying off the private loans at the end of Feb, will that increase or decrease my score?).

If it helps, my scores now are:

TransUnion: 756; Equifax: 733; Experian: 785

Thanks for the help!

SCF · ‎12-31-2008

Hey Peach, welcome to the forums!

To answer your question thoroughly, we need a little more information. Is the card you are an AU on older than your other accounts? This is to work out how removing it would affect the average age of your accounts and the age of your overall file (if its your oldest account).

Also, what is the utilization on the AU card and what is the utilization on your other cards? Will losing the CL on this card significantly increase the % of your credit you are using?

If you lose some age or your util goes up, removing the AU card could lower your score. Also, one 30 day late that is two years old should not have a significant impact on your score. I think that 30-days stop really dinging you after two years. Overall, your scores are strong, so I wouldn't worry too much unless you think more late payments may happen in the future. Another strategy might be to have your mom write the CCC and ask for a "goodwill" adjustment of their reporting. If that was her only late and she's been a good customer otherwise, they may no opt to no longer report the late as a courtesy, which would be ideal for both of you.

As for the private loans, are they the only installment loan on your report? Having a good credit mix (revolving, store credit, installment, mortgage) will increase your score, so if you close all your installment accounts you could lose some points.

I hope that gets you started!

Anonymous · ‎01-07-2009

Hi SCF,

Thank you for replying, to answer your questions:

The card with the one late payment that I'm an AU on is one of the oldest ones (I have 2 that are AU cards that are 17 years old, this is one of them). The other cards are much more recent, 2002 up to 2007.

The AU card with a late payment is about 54% utilized. The other old AU one is about 33% and the other three AU cards have under $60 or $0. My cards in my name only stay under 20% and are pif every month. Since the card with the one late payment is also the highest utilized, I would think that would be another reason to remove it from my account, correct?

I know my mother is struggling a little with paying for things, which is why I'm more concerned about one late payment, since the possibility of another is higher than usual. I can ask her to call in as well.

I have 4 loans with money on them (several were consolidated and thus are on the report as PIF). I would pay off three of them, leaving the largest of the four still being paid as agreed. The ones I want to pay off are the third oldest thing on my account, after the two AU cards (they are 1991, the 3 loans are 2002)...if that would have an impact?

Right now, I have the four loans, 1 store card, 1 card in my name only, and 5 cards I'm an authorized user on. I want to be ideal for buying a house and getting a mortgage added to that mix. So I'm hoping that I can pay off the 3 smaller loans and leave about $14k in the last loan and still have a good "mix"...am I right to think that?

thanks for the help, I hope this post wasn't too confusing.

Junejer · ‎01-07-2009

If I were you, I would remove myself from AU on the card with the late and the 54% util. Also, if your DM is struggling financially, as you stated, more lates may be on the horizon. If you remove yourself, you should recover what you lost from the 30 dpd. Don't know what will happen to your AAoA, if it will move you to a different bucket or not.

Have you read around enough to know how to time your payments, so that the CCCs will report the optimum util on your cards? There is plenty of good information on here about how to do that.