Authorized user tradelines for sale are a valuable way to add positive items to your credit history. In short, it's like "renting" someone else's perfect payment history in order to increase your credit score. There are several terms referring to the practice, but they all mean the same thing.
It’s a real thing; it is a powerful credit enhancement hack.
But, it’s important to be persuaded by facts and knowledge, not just by a potential increase in your credit scores.
For that reason, consider the following warning and recommendation:
So, what are tradelines? It’s important to understand something.
Tradelines can mean “any account in your credit report” or it can mean “authorized user accounts you add to credit reports for the purpose of increasing credit scores.”
If you already have open credit, such as credit cards or car loans, your creditors report your payment behavior to the credit bureaus. This information goes on your credit report as an account. Each account is called a “tradeline”.
Also, if you search for companies that sell them, you can purchase authorized user accounts for the purpose of increasing your credit score.
In order to explain how tradelines work, we need to explain a tiny bit about credit and credit scores.
Quick facts:
With that said, you might already see where this is going.
If you add tradelines to your credit report, they will impact your credit score. More specifically:
There are primarily three ways to add tradelines.
Options 1 and 2 deserve a bit of attention because selecting appropriate lines is important.
However, option 3 requires the most attention, as there are many questions and problems that can arise in a tradelines transaction.
When you look to engage a company to purchase seasoned accounts, you think you’re “buying tradelines” but in reality, you’re “renting” them.
Because you’re not permanently buying anything. You’re paying to be added as an authorized user onto a pre-existing account, temporarily.
That’s the nature of the service provided by tradelines companies. It’s really a form of credit repair or enhancement.
When buying tradelines, you have to be careful.
You’ll want to:
Most importantly, you’ll want to use a credit-services escrow platform to ensure you never get ripped off.
If you search the internet, you’ll see everything from tradelines lists to $100.00 tradelines to tradelines packages and more.
Over the last decade, the commercialization of the practice has seemed to solidify prices.
While fees for this service may range based on different factors, the average cost of piggybacking credit seems to be around $600.00 each.
That’s what you can expect to pay when you buy tradelines.
More important than the price is the quality of the company you choose.
It’s a pretty simple business model.
There are organizations that maintain a list of tradelines onto which you can pay to be added as an authorized user for the purpose of improving your credit score.
These are typically called tradeline sellers or brokers.
The person who owns the credit card gets a cut of the proceeds. The company keeps the rest as income. And, if they run the company well, there’s definitely a lot of room for profit.
The companies range in quality and significance. Here are a few categories we’ve observed:
Do tradelines really work? What gains in score should you expect? How fast do tradelines work?
This is an area most likely to cause conflict.
Despite ill-defined benefits like “guaranteed tradelines” or refunds, buyers and sellers of tradeline services are almost never on the same page.
Unfortunately, the consumer needs to inform themselves so that they can understand what kind of expectations are reasonable (whether a company discloses them or not).
Here are two great resources:
Do not look to online reviews to determine whether tradelines work. Online reviews are often subject to manipulation. Even if they were honest, you may not experience the same results with tradelines as someone else.
Research.
Ask a lot of questions.
Then act.
In addition to concerning yourself with a company’s quality, the effectiveness of the tradelines themselves, you should also concern yourself with the law.
It’s very unlikely that tradelines are illegal for the end-user. Meaning, a person buying authorized user accounts is likely not breaking any laws.
(If anyone knows differently, please comment below).
The specific practice of piggybacking credit is not regulated.
Instead, it falls under typical credit repair laws, such as the TSR and the CROA.
Even so, there are a lot of companies and very few of them comply with those laws and regulations.
It is certainly possible for the sellers of tradelines to violate the law (or rules), including:
Aside from laws that directly impact the direct service of tradelines, people tend to couple an otherwise legal service with illegal services.
For example, it is common for people to engage in synthetic identity fraud in the form of so-called credit profile numbers (or “CPNs”). Then, they add authorized user accounts to the CPNs, dragging the tradeline industry down into outright fraudulent transactions.
Another example is “primary” tradelines. Buying primary accounts in the same way as authorized user accounts would violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Why? Because that law requires accurate data reporting and buying primary tradelines cannot be accurate.
That's an easy one. The answer is a question: Will the tradelines help you achieve your goal? If so, then yes. If not, then no. Clearly, determining whether it will help depends on your research and the honesty and preparedness of the company you hire.
You could ask this question differently. You could ask "How fast do tradelines work?" This depends on a lot of factors, such as whether the company you're working with is responsible. But, the general answer is that it takes about 30 days to report and post. As soon as this happens, you will have a new score.
This is a great question because there's some confusion about how long tradelines stay on your credit report vs how long the positive impact on your credit score lasts. Tradelines may stay on your credit report for many years. However, the impact from adding them only lasts for a few months and continues to go back down over time.
This is the best question because if it doesn't help you achieve your goal, what's the point? Whether tradelines can help you secure a mortgage on a house, open a new credit card, obtain a car loan, etc., depends on more than tradelines. Yes, tradelines may help you get your credit score into qualifiable territory. But, getting approved for credit requires more than good credit scores. So, if you're otherwise qualified (income, job, etc.), then this technique may be an option for you if need a quick boost in score.
We do not make any specific recommendation to buy tradelines or from whom you should buy them. However, if you plan on pursuing this credit improvement technique, we do recommend that you use Credzu's escrow platform so that you can guarantee that you will not be ripped off. How? We hold your money in escrow and release it to the company only if they performed as agreed. Otherwise, the money goes back to you.
Our escrow agents are specialists in the process. Talk to us about your goals and we can discuss what options are best for you.
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