The other day I received my TU report for the first time, when I looked at the top, I saw that I had been in their records since 1993. I was born in 1981, and I would remember if I had any visa cards at 12 years of age. Get this, it turns out that my mother had me as an authorized user on one of her accounts, "just in case." The good thing is that it was reported for a period of four years(until 1997), never late and it was also reported as closed by the consumer. Now for my question, does this really affect my score in any way? Remember, I was only an authorized user. Just curious...
Seriously, it does help. To future creditors it looks like you have been using credit responsibly for nine years...much better than only one or two years. One of the top reasons for low scores addressed by the credit bureaus is length of credit history is insufficient. You already have half of us beat. Congrats. Dani
I guess I should thank my mother for putting me as an authorized user! I didn't think they could do that if you are under 18.
I got a Radioshack card at 16 with a $2300 credit limit with my dad's cosigning on it. Actually my mother signed his name..LOL. Boy, was he pissed when he found out!
MikeB- Do you think that made a difference in your score? I am wondering what my score would be without that account. My score was 630 last October when I financed a car, it didn't really go up that much. I added a couple of cards, thats probably why.
