You have amazing credit. Your Valentines's credit stinks.
It's a common occurrence these days, but did you know it's one that you can easily do something about?
Forget about the overpriced stuffed animals, waxy chocolate, and expensive dinners this Valentine's day, and give your partner something that will really change his/her future forever. Lend your excellent credit score! Here's how:
Piggybacking, a technique that allows those with good credit to boost other's credit scores by adding them as an authorized user, stills works. If you haven't heard the term before, it's nothing new. In fact, parents have used the method for a long time to help their children build good credit. Unfortunately, in recent years piggybacking has received a lot of bad press as some companies started taking advantage of the system and connecting bad-credit consumers with good-credit consumers for a fee. As you can imagine, FICO didn't like that one bit.
In fact, FICO announced in 2007 that its new credit scoring formula would exclude all the benefits of piggybacking due to increased abuse. However, amidst a great deal of controversy over the issue, Fair Isaac then announced they had changed their minds and instead developed a technology that would make it much harder to abuse the system. Legitimate authorized users, as always, would continue to benefit from piggybacking.
And the best part is it's super easy to help your Valentine out. All you need to do is call up each of your credit card companies and add your partner as an authorized user on your credit cards. Your credit score isn't at risk in any way, as long as you keep your accounts in good standing, and your significant other's credit scores will only benefit by soon claiming the stellar credit history of each of your credit cards on her credit reports. It's like magic! Voila- once the cards are reported on your partner's credit reports, the credit scores should receive an immediate boost.
A word of caution to wise. Most people still love stuffed animals, chocolate, and dinners out on Valentine's day. I know, I said forget about them, but let's be serious now. If you want a truly happy Valentine, the "gift of good credit" probably isn't going to cut it. So buck up, spend a little dough too, and your partner should love your creative gift idea even more.
