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Business Tradelines: How to Build Business Credit

If you’re trying to figure out how to get tradelines for your business, the first thing worth knowing is that business credit and personal credit are two different animals — and a lot of the advice floating around blurs them together. I sold authorized user tradelines on the personal side, so I’ll be honest about where they help a business and where they don’t. For the consumer version of all this, my post on primary tradelines is a good companion, and I get into the numbers in how much will a tradeline boost my credit.

how to get tradelines for your business
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Length of time revolving accounts have been established

If you’ve seen this listed as a reason your credit score isn’t higher, you’re looking at the age side of your credit profile. The scoring model is saying: your revolving accounts — credit cards, lines of credit — haven’t been open long enough to carry much weight. The fix sounds simple, but there are a few things worth understanding about how account age actually works before you act.

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How to Build Credit at 16: What Actually Works

Most 16-year-olds can’t open their own credit card. That’s just the law — the CARD Act requires applicants to be 18, and under 21 without independent income, most issuers won’t approve you anyway. So if you’re 16 and wondering how to build credit, the options are narrower than the internet makes them sound. But narrower doesn’t mean impossible, and the option that actually works is worth understanding in some detail.

how to build credit at 16

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Consumer Disputes Reinvestigation in Progress: What It Means

You’re looking at your credit report and one of the accounts says “consumer disputes reinvestigation in progress.” It showed up after you filed a dispute, and now you want to know what it actually means — how long it stays, what happens when it clears, and what you should be doing in the meantime.

consumer disputes reinvestigation in progress

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Can I pay to be an authorized user?

Buyers ask me this one a lot — usually right after they’ve spent twenty minutes Googling tradeline companies and aren’t sure if the whole thing is legitimate. The short answer: yes, you can pay to be added as an authorized user on someone else’s credit card. That’s actually the entire business model I run at kindoflost.com.

But there’s a longer answer worth reading before you spend money, because not all AU tradelines are the same, and a few details can make the difference between a purchase that moves your score and one that doesn’t.

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