If it’s an approach you’ve been thinking about for a while but are hesitant due to its legality. We will help you figure it out.
What are Authorized User Tradelines?
Authorized user tradeline means enrolling a credit consumer as a user on another person’s credit card account with excellent management. Whether yours or someone else’s, every account appearing on your credit report that builds credit is a tradeline.
The authorized user approach often begins with asking a family member or friend with an excellent credit score to list you on their existing account. There is a challenge with this strategy. Not so many of us have buddies or family friends with good credit card accounts.
The alternative approach is paying a stranger to add you as an authorized user on their credit card accounts. It’s known as piggybacking. The goodness of it is that you don’t have to find the credit tradelines for sale yourself. There are multiple credit tradeline companies that can link you to credit accounts with excellent ratings.
Is it Legally Safe to Use Authorized User Tradelines?
Back to our main topic; do you risk prosecution for piggybacking? Some lenders may consider piggybacking as a loophole for consumers with poor credit scores. The practice has its challenges, as we’ll highlight later, and can be risky.
However, there’s no law barring anyone from using authorized user tradelines. Also, it’s not a punishable offense, and lenders should not penalize consumers for piggybacking. The truth is, more than 33% of American citizens have at least one personal tradeline on their report. This is according to a 2010 Federal Reserve Board report.
What Are The Risks Of Using Credit Tradelines?
Piggybacking is a lifesaver to those who do access to excellent authorized user credit card accounts. But before trying it out, it’s worth considering what could go wrong.
One, you may end up losing lots of money buying credit tradelines since there’s no complete guarantee that they’ll work. Tradelines can be very expensive, especially if purchased from dubious credit tradeline firms. That’s why it’s imperative to deal with only trusted best tradeline companies with a reputation in the industry.
In some circumstances, purchasing tradelines may be fraudulent, such as primary tradelines. Only account owners can utilize the benefits of primary tradelines. For instance, some defrauders in the industry may sell you credit profile numbers, referred to as CPNs. Such firms will claim that consumers can use purchased CPNs instead of their SSN when applying for credit with a bad score. The truth is CPN tradelines can be dangerous as they involve identity fraud. That is, it’s a federal crime to misrepresent one’s SSN.
Another fraudulent scheme with tradelines is “address merging.” In this case, a credit firm advises consumers to use the account owner’s address as their own. Such actions can only land the tradeline buyers in trouble with the law. That’s why it’s crucial to deal with trusted tradeline companies only.
Final Thoughts on Legality of Tradelines
Using au tradelines is a safe strategy and a better way of building a user’s credit score if done correctly. It’s highly advisable to deal with trustworthy tradeline companies only. Purchasing wholesale tradelines from trusted firms will provide reliable credit card accounts and increase your chances of strengthening your score.
