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#2: Piggybacking Loophole Narrowed

If you are listed as an authorized user on someone else's credit card account, a spouse or child's perhaps, that account likely appears on your credit report, too. As long as the bills are paid on time and the card has a low balance, it likely helps your score. But with FICO 08, it's a different story.

That's because credit repair firms exploited authorized user accounts as a loophole to boost credit scores for people with bad credit or no credit. They would find someone with excellent credit, then allow a perfect stranger to "piggyback" on their good credit by adding them as an authorized user. The person "renting" the good credit waited until their credit score went up and would then get a mortgage or open new accounts on their own.

Fair Isaac is fighting back against this type of fraud by blocking certain types of authorized user accounts from affecting scores.