About getting added to someone elses card to help your credit score...
A girl came into work last week literally in tears... shes 19 and signed up for her first credit card and was denied which blew her away because she figured she had perfect credit. When she got her credit report, it was because of her debt to credit limit ratio...
When she was 14, her mom got a credit card and added her to it so that she would have a card for emergencies. She never used it, but her mom did and though shes paid on it and such, the card has a $10k limit that she has about $8k on.
Its not harming her moms credit because she has other credit cards with next to little to no balance on it...so her debt to credit limit ratio is below 50%... But since this is the only card on this girls credit report, it looks like shes at about 80% which is very, very bad especially at that high an amount.
Her mom has promised to pay down on that card immediately which will help a lot...which if she does this girls credit will actually be pretty stellar, since she would have credit history of 5 years already plus her mom has paid on time every month. I tried to explain to her that once its paid down to at least half she will be in a way better place than someone with no credit, but she was still balling her eyes out she was so upset....

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