Given that Chase counts credit/charge cards that your an authorized user of when determining if their 5/24 rule applies to you, I thought it would be helpful to look at removing these accounts from your credit report (DEM Flyers has tackled this before, but not all card issuers were accounted for). Obviously this isn’t necessary if you’re never added as an authorized user, but increasingly card issuers are offering increased bonuses for adding an authorized user so chances are you’ve been in this situation before.
[Read:Â How Does Being An Authorized User Affect Your Credit?]
Before getting started you should first make sure that the authorized user account has been closed (no need to close the primary account, just the authorized user account), as it’s usually not possible to get it removed when it’s still open.
Contents
Ways To Remove Authorized User Accounts
To get started it’s important to know that there are two ways to get authorized user accounts removed from your report:
- Request that the card issuer removes them (normally has to be done by the primary account holder)
- Request that the credit bureau (e.g TransUnion, Equifax or Experian) removes them
In general it’s going to be much easier to to ask the card issuer to remove the account from a credit report first. This is because if they say yes then they will automatically contact all three credit bureaus and ask them to remove the account. If you contact the credit bureaus, you’ll need to make sure all three remove the account otherwise it might still show on some of your credit reports.
Specific Card Issuers
American Express
American Express is definitely the most difficult card issuer to get authorized users removed from credit reports. Using the chat function simply does not work and calling doesn’t have a much better success rate either, often they will tell you that this cannot be done due to legal reasons. I’m unaware of any law that prevents them from doing this and some represenatives will process it for you, so it seems to be a case of hanging up and calling again (positive data points: 1, 2)
The other option is a dispute with the credit bureau and that has limited success as well:
Bank of America
Calling Bank of America will work but the authorized user account needs to be closed before they will remove it (1). The Credit Karma dispute feature will also work for at least TransUnion according to this data point (1). Authorized user can call in as well and it will automatically drop off within 30 days: 1.
Barclaycard
The authorized user account needs to be closed for thirty days before Barclaycard will consider removing it from your credit report. Once this time period is over, you should be able to just send a message requesting the card be removed from your credit reports. This message should come from the authorized user and not the primary account holder (only the authorized user account needs to have been closed for thirty days). Barclaycard state that this will be done when the next statement closes.
Capital One
Authorized user can removed themselves in the online portal. The account falls off your report within 30 days of doing so.
Chase
Removing an authorized user account with Chase couldn’t be easier (probably because they don’t even require a SSN for these accounts). All you need to do is send them a secured message and ask for the account to be removed. The message should be sent by the authorized user that wants the account removed from their credit report and not the primary cardholder. If the authorized user doesn’t have an account with Chase it should be sent via the primary account holder.
Citi
Citi will also remove authorized user accounts from credit reports if it’s requested, although only phone requests will be processed. Again this request should be initiated by the authorized user account holder and the account must be closed first. Citi states that your credit report should be updated within 30 – 90 days.
Discover
Update: Readers are reporting that Discover is refusing to do this now.
Discover allows you to get authorized user accounts removed from your credit report by sending them a secured message. For some reason sometimes this is done incorrectly and it’ll show as ‘Closed – Terminated’ on your credit report. Sending them another message should get this fixed.
Synchrony
Removing an authorized user account with Synchrony is very easy via secured message.
U.S. Bank
No idea, share experiences in the comments.
Wells Fargo
No idea, share the experiences in the comments.
Removal Via Credit Bureaus
Equifax
- Head to their dispute portal/credit investigation page
Experian
- Head to their dispute portal
TransUnion
Easily done through Credit Karma, using their direct dispute feature:
- Pull up your list of accounts
- Under each account there is a link to dispute that account
- Click this link
- Click “Ownership – I am no longer liable for this account” as your dispute reason
