Like software, credit score technology changes from time to time and a new version is released. Fair Isaac launched FICO 08 recently and the formula included a change that had some users up in arms. In the earlier versions, authorized users such as teenage kids or spouses with no credit history could build a record of responsible credit use by becoming an authorized user on a parent or partner’s card.

FICO did away with allowing authorized user credit accounts to count towards the calculation in the 08 version, citing the emergence of so-called credit score repair companies that claimed to boost a person’s score by unknowingly “piggybacking” on someone else’s good credit.

Well, today Fair Isaac announced that it figured out a way to include authorized users in the credit score calculation “while materially reducing any potential impact to the score from tampering,” according to the press release.

Who will care about this? The estimated 50 million U.S. consumers who are legitimate authorized users on a person’s credit card.

Fair Isaac didn’t provide details about how this new technology will thwart credit doctors while helping Junior develop a credit footprint.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.