Personal blog on early retirement, selling tradelines, and analytics projects. I write about what I learn as I am learning it.
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”
The short answer is no — Credit Strong doesn’t hand you money. If you’re searching “does credit strong give you a loan” hoping to cover an expense, you need to look elsewhere. But if you’re trying to build credit history and you just want to understand what Credit Strong actually does, the longer answer is worth reading. Related: do joint credit cards build credit — worth reading if this applies to you.
People ask me this all the time, usually a few days after doing something responsible — paying off a balance, disputing an error — and then checking their score to see… nothing. “Why is my credit score not updating?” is one of those questions that sounds simple but has a surprisingly layered answer.
The credit repair business opportunity looks different depending on which side you’re looking at it from. There’s the formal credit repair company side — disputing items, charging monthly retainers, navigating Credit Repair Organizations Act compliance. And then there’s the tradelines side, which is what I actually do: I sell authorized user positions on my own credit cards to people trying to boost their scores. Different animals. Both are real income opportunities; neither is as passive as the sales pitches suggest. Related: using personal credit card for business — worth reading if this applies to you.
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.
Continue reading “Consumer Disputes Reinvestigation in Progress”