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The reality is that there were abuses of the authorized user process. I doubt that anyone involved in drafting the ECOA ever contemplated that AU protections and benefits could ever be conferred to someone by the sister of Aunt Sally's next-door neighbor's third-cousin twice-removed in the same manner as a spouse would be able to obtain the benefit from being an AU on their husband or wife's account.

As a result of the perversion of the process, too many people were able to artificially inflate their scores and get into houses that they subsequently defaulted on. And while the AU process was not the only contributing cause to the mortgage meltdowns, they played enough of a role that SOMEONE has to get a handle on the scams that run/ran rampant.