authorized user on credit card

[Anonymous]

I am trying to improve my credit score my current credit score from all the CRA is

EQ: 678  Tran :680 and  Ex : 679

I would like to know that if my father who has excellent credit score  add me as AU user. Will that increase my score?  He doesnt use his credit cards alot but he does have scores of 710 + on all three CRA.

[Anonymous]

Your father's score does not matter. What does is the hx, the CL and UTIL.   As long as the CC has a low Bal  then YES it would help you.

You would get credit for the length of history, CL and UTIL for that CC.

Be sure that the card is active!!

Message Edited by HappyDays on 01-10-2009 09:56 AM

[Anonymous]

 he doesnt have any late payment on the credit card, util is maybe 2 percent of the credit limit. I had score of 724, 742 and 734 when me and my husband applied for mortgage. The mortgage company sold our mortgage and on my husbands credit report showed only 1 mortgage but on mine it showed 2 mortgages. which dropped my score almost 100 points. I called the old mortgage company and told them about the problem. After they reported to the CRA my score went up only 10 points.  my husband credit is excellent EQ is 708 Trans 689 and EX 714 but he got alot of negative things removed from his CR. other the other side my dad doesnt have any negative line paid everything on time and never been late.

We are trying to refinance our mortgage and get lowest rate possiable. if my mid score was 710 we could have got rate of 4.50 with our current mortgage company but since his score is good and mine is ok we couldnt refinance it.

[Anonymous]

Your father can put you as an AU on 1 CC  and hubby on another or both of you on the same CC.

It will take time for the CC to start reporting you as an AU so be ready for that.

Message Edited by HappyDays on 01-10-2009 11:20 AM

[Anonymous]

my fathers score is

TransUnion 712
Equifax  713
Experian 703

Your oldest account was opened
10 Years, 1 Month ago

 Average age of your accounts
5 years

UTIL  on AMEX is 0

TL : No Negative Info

VS Mine

TransUnion 680

Equifax  678

Experian 679

should I still concider adding my as AU user?

[Anonymous]

As I said....what his scores are does not matter....they will NOT help you.  What will help you is the length of history, CL and UTIL.

If he had the CC for 10 years    it will add 10 years to your length of history also adv history. It will also add whatever his CL is to you. So if you have 3 CCs with a total CL of $5000  add his of $5000 (only on this 1 card)  you now have a CL of $10,000.   If you have a UTIL of 50%    it will now be 25%

NOW  you say that he has a history of 10 years. In order for you to get this history (10 years).....you must be added to that account.

You only get the years (history) on the CC that you are added to.

Message Edited by HappyDays on 01-10-2009 03:26 PM

[WannaHouse]

Youshould ask to be added to one card from your dad (his best..oldest and low util) and also one from your spouse (same criteria)

This will help, but as Happydays said, it will take a couple months to report to your reports.

[Anonymous]

This is a great idea!  I never thought of doing this. 

[Anonymous]

I was under the impression that FICO was elminating the benefits of adding authorized users to credit cards.  I was suprised when I pulled my three credit reports and found that Transunion and Equifax were listing the credit history of the account where I am listed as an authorized user while Experian was not.  This is probably a 50 point difference in credit scoring.  Should I submit a claim to Experian to report the credit card?  And is FICO still looking to eliminate the authorized user accounts from the FICO scoring??  Thanks for the help, new user on here, and the amount of information is great.

[Junejer]

Hello KBVT, and welcome to the forums. Please read Credit Scoring 101, if you haven't already.

They were talking about that with FICO 08, which has not been rolled out, and will probably be awhile before it is widely used. At any rate, they are now going to allow AU, apparently with some manner of detecting whether or not AUs are legit and excluding ill-legit AUs from the scoring.

You should call the CCC, they are the ones that control who is reporting.  They are under no obligation to report to at all, let alone to all three.