Category: Tradelines

Piggybacking credit companies all sell the same basic thing: they add you as an authorized user on someone else’s seasoned credit card so that card’s age and limit post to your credit report. I know this because I’m on the other side of that transaction — I sell authorized user tradelines from my own cards, both through brokers and directly here. So when I look at the companies advertising this, I’m not guessing at how they work; I’ve listed cards with several of them and watched how they treat buyers and sellers. This is the honest version of what you’re actually paying for and how to tell a real operation from one that’ll waste your money. If you want the mechanics first, here’s how piggybacking credit actually works from the inside.

Continue reading “Piggybacking credit companies: what to watch for”

At one point I had around ten hard inquiries on my credit report at the same time. That wasn’t recklessness — it was the side effect of opening new cards to season them for tradeline sales. But it made me think hard (no pun intended) about what inquiries actually do to a score, versus what people think they do. The answer is more nuanced than most posts let on. Related: does removing hard inquiries increase credit score — worth reading if this applies to you.

Continue reading “How many hard inquiries is too many? What I learned the hard way”

The question I get from buyers is usually some version of: does it matter which tradeline company you go with? Or is a tradeline a tradeline? The company matters less than the card — specifically which issuer it’s from, how old it is, and what the limit is. Those are the three things that determine how much an authorized user tradeline actually moves your score, and they’re the variables most buyers don’t dig into before purchasing. If you’re wondering whether you can pay to be an authorized user on someone else’s account, the short answer is yes — and it’s a common way to build credit quickly.

Continue reading “Authorized User Tradelines: How They Work”

People ask me some version of the guarantor vs cosigner question more often than you’d expect — usually because they’re trying to figure out if buying an authorized user tradeline is similar to having one or the other. It’s not, but explaining why forces you to actually sort out what these two terms mean, because even landlords and lenders use them interchangeably when they shouldn’t.

Continue reading “Guarantor vs Cosigner: What’s the Difference?”

Buyers come to me asking for old tradelines specifically. “I want the oldest card you have” is something I hear a lot, and the logic is right — the older the tradeline, the bigger the lift on the age component of your score. But how that age actually shows up on your report depends entirely on which issuer the card is from, and that part catches a lot of buyers off-guard. Seasoned tradelines are worth understanding before you hand over any money, because two cards that look identical on paper can do very different things to your report.

Continue reading “Seasoned tradelines: what actually makes one worth buying”