In order to effectively fix your credit, you need a good understanding of how the credit scoring model works. A company called Fair Isaac Corp (FICO) is responsible for creating the algorithm that is used by credit lenders to determine credit scores.
Credit scores are used to give credit lenders a way to assess how much of a possible risk a borrower will be. The exact details of the credit scoring system have never been made public, but it is easy to observe and understand how it behaves.
Fair Isaac is not just known for creating the FICO score, as they also carry out research that makes their software as quick to respond to consumer changes in behavior as much as possible. Their model is updated regularly, sometime minor changes are made, other times the changes are fairly major, depending on the issue at hand.
In 2008, FICO came out with a newer version of its software, and a major change was made to address the somewhat questionable practice of selling authorized user credit card accounts. The point of doing this was to control the credit scores of buyers. Lenders were concerned about the reliability of credit scores and expressed their concern. In response, Fair Isaac came up with a way of blocking the benefits that were had by using an authorized user account.
Getting rid of the benefits of an authorized user account was a big deal, especially with legit family members' accounts that were affected by the software change that was now blocking them. Lucky for them Fair Isaac went back and made changes to the software once again to continue to filter out those who were abusing the system, but it now allows a family member with not so great credit to reap the benefits of sharing an account with a relative who has good credit. Used carefully and properly, this can be an essential tool in fixing your credit score.