I understand that the length of your history with a credit bureau is a factor in computing your score. I have also read about having someone add you as an "authorized user" to a good trade line to increase your score. I am interested in getting a new mortgage at a better rate. Does anyone know how beneficial adding a parent's 20 year old trade line would be to one's FICO scores? (I have been with teh bureaus less than 10 years.) Would that adjust my time in the CB's system to the origination of the authorized user trade line? Or is the benefit just having an additional trade line? Or is my inability to figure out what goes into my FICO score the fundamental problem with the system anyway? Could adding another account, even as an AU, decrease my score?
RE: Authorized user status &am If you have 10-years of history, then I would say it most likely wonâ??t help you. People who have less than two years of history on their reports mostly do that little trick. Also you need to know that itâ??s a 50/50 chance that the creditor you have may or may not start reporting to the AU's credit report. I've done this myself with friends, and was able to add 3 aged accounts but another 3 credit cards did not post to my reports. I'm not sure what exactly it did for my score as it does list me as being on a "joint account" but I have been able to secure prime cards since then. Tyson
