How will adding my wife to my credit card affect her credit?
Mar 08, 2009 in
Credit
templeofdoom1234
My wife is trying to raise her credit score so she asked me if I could put her on my credit card. It has a zero balance and a limit of $1500 and I’ve never missed a payment. Will adding her to my card raise her score? Approximately how much?
My wife is trying to raise her credit score so she asked me if I could put her on my credit card. It has a zero balance and a limit of $1500 and I’ve never missed a payment. Will adding her to my card raise her score? Approximately how much?
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4 comments
stephenweinstein on March 8, 2009 at 9:19 pm
It will not affect her credit. They changed the credit score formula recently so that being an authorized user no longer helps.
zoe on March 10, 2009 at 7:25 am
Depends how you add her. If she is just an authorized user, it will not affect her credit. If she is co-borrower then, yes it could help her raise her score. There no perfect “formula” to see how it might raise her credit score. There are some calculators on credit bureau sites, like myfico.com. It will pull her credit and you can see what is bring her score down and look at different scenarios that could help improve her score.
wildbirdie on March 10, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Adding her as an authorized user means nothing.
Adding her as a co-borrower will affect her score. She will gain some points by getting a better used to available ratio. Beyond that it’s hard to say without knowing what she has now. If she already has a lot of cards, adding another will hurt. If she has no cards with a long history, and this has a long history, then it will help. It is a low balance card so the affect won;t be huge.
bdancer222 on March 12, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Adding your wife to the card as an authorized user will help your credit. The account with it’s good payment history will show up on your credit report.
Fair Isaac was going to change the rules for authorized users; however, there was such an outcry that they backed off that change. Adding spouses and children to accounts as authorized users will count in their score. Fair Isaac claims to have some method to stop strangers from using this piggy backing method.