im confused on authorized users. i was hoping maybe you guys can help out. my girlfriend has very bad credit. she was a victim of id theft by her older sister when she was younger. so on her reports, it shows that she had defaulted accounts, settlements with cc companies etc. She has no chances of getting her own unsecured cards. I gave her a AU on my citibank mc. Im also thinking about giving her AU on my amex. Will any of this help her credit? For citibank, they didnt even ask for her SS#. and i've heard Amex doesnt really need it either. How can it improve her credit if these companies dont even know her SS#? also, any chances of hurting my scores just by having her on my accounts? thanks
I'll take a stab at answering. From what I understand even without a SS#, a credit card company can still place the AU status on her report. Will it help? Your history, payment pattern, CLs and so forth should help her FICO score. But it will not negate the negative notations on her report. Those items need to be addressed and removed. Best regards, Mirage
I agree with Mirage. Your positive history will help her, but she needs to clean up her reports. Just because she was a victim of ID theft (or, especially because she was a victim of ID theft), she doesn't need to have that negative history showing on her reports. Read the posts at the top of the board, and do a lot more reading, and you'll see what she should do. She should start by getting a copy of her report from each of the bureaus. Then she needs to dispute all of the negatives as "not mine." By the time she gets her reports (request them to be mailed), you'll have time to read a lot of things here and see what kind of letters she should write.
quick question.. i've been asking her to tell the companies that they were "not hers" but she's afraid that they will somehow file charges or investigate that it to be her older sister.
Just disputing with the CRA is not going to produce that kind of investigation. Depending on what further action she pursues, it could come up later. A lot of times there isn't legal action taken, sometimes there is. But that would be when she works with the original creditors. Just disputing with the credit bureaus is fine. If they don't verify, it gets deleted. If they do, it stays, and she can see what other avenues are open.
As far as filing charges, before it gets to that, she would have to fill out things like an affidavit of fraud. She can back off if she doesn't want to do this.
I have a questsion... if she refuses to sign the affidavit of fraud, will the OC's and CA's just assume it's really hers and not investigate??
I don't know--it depends on who it is, I think. But the first dispute should be to the CRA, not the CA.
