Personal blog on early retirement, a little traveling, and analytics projects. I write about what I learn as I am learning it.
Authorized user tradelines, written by someone who has actually sold them since 2019 — how the market works, what the brokers really pay, and what to watch out for. No CPNs, ever.
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.
Continue reading “Length of time revolving accounts have been established”
I sold authorized user tradelines on my own credit cards, and one of the questions that kept landing in my inbox is about auto primary tradelines — usually from someone who’s been told they need one on their report before a car purchase will go through. An auto primary tradeline is an auto loan reported on your credit file with you as the primary borrower: your name on the loan, your payment history, your responsibility. That’s the simple part. The complicated part is the market that has grown around the phrase, because a lot of people typing it into Google aren’t looking for a definition — they’re looking to buy one. And that’s where I owe you a straight answer, even if it costs me a sale (it usually doesn’t — more on that below).
Every time someone talks about a “5 minute credit score trick,” they usually mean one of two things: paying down a balance quickly, or adding an authorized user tradeline. The “5 minute” part is actually accurate — the setup itself takes minutes. The results don’t. That distinction matters, and I want to be upfront about it before getting into what actually works.
Continue reading “5 Minute Credit Score Trick: What It Actually Does”
At some point while reviewing your credit report, you’ll probably see a list of inquiries — some labeled “hard” and some labeled with terms like “informative research credit inquiry” or variations on that phrase. The hard ones you likely recognize: those are from credit applications. The informative research ones are different, and understanding what they are (and what they aren’t) is worth a few minutes.
Buyers ask me this pretty regularly: does Chase actually report authorized users? The short answer is yes — Chase reports adult authorized users to all three major credit bureaus. But there’s a nuance here that most posts miss entirely, and it matters depending on why you’re asking.
Continue reading “Does Chase Report Authorized Users? (Yes, for Adults)”