Should You Co-sign for a Credit Card with Your Teen?
According to the Associated Press, 84% of undergraduates had at least one credit card in the 2008 spring semester and half of college students had four or more credit cards. Seniors had average credit card debt of $4,100 when they graduated. Due to recent credit card legislation, unless your kid has enough income to pay monthly credit card bills, he/she cannot get a credit card without you or some other adult serving as a co-signer. Should you do it?
Let’s see. First, you are just as responsible for paying it back as the other person. Second, even if your teen promises not to charge up to the limit it could still happen. So, if you really want to help your kid begin establishing a credit history, FoxBusiness.com suggests considering a secured credit card. This type of card requires a deposit of about $250 to $500 into an account in order to receive a credit limit for the same amount, preventing credit card debt and building credit history along the way.
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NO! Well in my case i wish to god i never cosigned with my mom.
Comment by james — Sep 9th 2011 @ 6:52 pmOut of school, i had no credit, so I cosigned with my mom.
I used it once to buy a laptop, and gave my mother the money to pay it off over the next year. It was agreed not be used without letting the other know it was being used.
Unbeknownst to me, she never followed through with this. Not only did she max it out, she had got another in our name, and max it out, at which point she stopped paying the bills. Since i had moved out months after signing, I had no idea what was going on until I went to buy a house thinking i had a good credit history. I was livid at that point, house purchase fell apart. And here I am 8 years later still suffering from the credit damage she caused me. I was able to remove the extra card from my credit, but the original one that i signed, still haunts me.
So, no, I would not suggest cosigning…
I’d also make sure if you do, you keep track of the payments, she had the gall to say i never paid her my portion of the bill, sadly i had no proof as I had given her cash to put to the bills 8(