Married Women Need Credit in Their Own Name to Protect Their Credit Score

July 3, 2008 By Matthew Paulson

Fair Isaac is changing the way credit scores are calculated and chances are it will negatively affect the credit scores for millions of women. For many years now, people have been allowed to share their best credit cards with other authorized users. If the card was used on a regular basis and kept with a relatively low balance, it would positively effect the credit scores of not only the card holder, but also the authorized user. Typically husbands will open a credit card for himself and his spouse to make use of, and set his wife as an authorized user. They both make use of the card and both and receive a boost in their credit scores. Unfortunately this is all about to change and it’s crucial for women to have credit in their own names to protect their credit score.

Later this year, Fair Isaac will be changing the calculation method for credit scores and individuals who are authorized users on others account will no longer receive the benefit in their credit score of having that debt. The reason for this change is that many criminals have found a way to artificially inflate people’s credit scores by renting out people’s good credit.

The idea behind this scam to inflate credit scores is that a person with bad credit can use a service to pay someone with good credit to let them put their name on the person’s credit card as an authorized user. The person with bad credit then has a pristine card on their credit report bolstering their credit score artificially.

Because of this change, women, or men for that matter, who have been married for many years and have always used their spouses credit cards and don’t have any debts under their own name will see a dramatic drop in their credit score. They could easily have their credit score drop to zero overnight if they have no credit in their name. In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that there will be over three million women who will have literally no credit standing.

For most families, this isn’t a terribly big deal if one of the spouses has decent credit. However often a divorce will occur or one of the spouses will die in an accident leaving the widowed spouse with poor credit and nowhere to go from there. Wives should have some credit in their own name so that in the event of the loss of their husband, they have some credit history to go off of. They can do this by opening up a credit card or two (no more) in their name and making a small charge and paying it off on occasion. It’s time to take out the credit card applications.

Posted in credit score

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