If anyone can help me I will apprecitate it. I have bad credit. One of my friends has excellent credit she is going to add me to her account will this help my credit?
If she adds you on as an authorized user...no If she adds you on as a joint cardholder...yes!!! To become a joint cardholder, she has to request it in writing and both of you have to sign. If you go that route, make sure she takes care of the cards - even though your credit may not be good, the last thing you need is another bad account. Have her keep you name on the account for at least a year (2 is preferred) and that should bounce you back up. However, I'd check out the letters here to see what you can do to the bad marks you have on your own credit report. Hope this helps... GT
Yes. It's called an "Authorized User" or AU for short. If you don't have any or many positive tradelines on your credit report, this will definately help. Usually it will show up on your CR with the original (your friends) open date. So you don't get dinged for the new credit because it shows up instantly aged. Make sure she adds you to a card that was opened over a year ago, the older the better. Depending on how much credit you already have available. If not much have her add you to a card with a high limit. Also, they DO NOT need your ss# to add you as an AU. If they ask her for it she can tell them that she just wants you to be put on as an AU. They will still find their way to your CR.
It looks like GT and I posted at the same time. My wife's addition of me as AU on 3 of her credit cards did give me score increases. But I still had alot of bad tradelines at the time. My best increase was after one of the cards start reporting, I got 12 points.
any positive accounts that show up on your credit report will help... Fico scores do not determine AU or not... Not all Au accounts report though... Kev
I have to disagree with dfwgt. An AU user on a POSITIVE account WILL boost your score. As long as the company that ussues the card reports it to the credit bureaus.
