authorized user

[Anonymous]

My brother added me as an au on his chase MasterCard, we have different last names and addresses. I called chase and they said they do report to all bureaus, having different last names and addresses, can they still determine I am immediate family?

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:
My brother added me as an au on his chase MasterCard, we have different last names and addresses. I called chase and they said they do report to all bureaus, having different last names and addresses, can they still determine I am immediate family?

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Welcome to the forums!

Are you referring to Chase getting the card on there, or whatever FICO's anti-AU-abuse algorithm is that they state is implemented in the FICO '08 model?

Chase will likely get the account there eventually (via SSN if nothing else) but the AU-abuse protection is effectively a trade secret for good reason.  I don't know even if it really exists after the original preventing abuse implementation got ripped out of the original algorithm... but given that your situation is hardly unique (probably millions of AU's who don't reside at the same residence, and non-trivial numbers with different last names), I wouldn't worry about it.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I'm trying to improve thin file and was hoping they would use different criteria to determine I'm not a complete stranger trying to take advantage.

[AndySoCal]

The authorized user abuse is in FICO 08 per the FICO product fact sheet. There were two problems FICO addressed in FICO 08 per the product fact sheet.  One owas the problem of what is called pioggybacking.  Piggybacking is a process where a person adds a person to their credit card as authorized user in a echange for cash.  Removing authorized user acccounts out of the score created a second problem. Per the product fact sheet lenders were wanting the score to still consider spousal authoriezed user accounts to help support their compliance with federal regulations.  FICO has found a way to include authorized user accounts in the score calculation witrhout reducing material impact to the score. In what why or how the product fact sheet does not say.

[abundancejones]

I think their "trade secret" is that they ask the banks to require their customers to answer one question "Is the authorized user your spouse?". I was presented with this question was looking through a credit application. 

[Anonymous]

It doesn't need to be only a spouse, it can also be an immediate family memeber.