01 Oct 2025
If you’re looking into authorized user trade lines (sometimes called “seasoned trade lines”), chances are you’re trying to move forward in life.
Maybe you’re working on buying a home.
Maybe you’re...
About Matias Pintor
29 Jul 2024
In today's economic climate, understanding how tradelines can impact your financial health is crucial, especially if you're considering buying or renting a home. Let's delve into the current state of ...
17 Dec 2023
Whether or not tradelines are a good idea is probably the first and most important question you should ask yourself. The answer of course really depends on a few things. We are happy to use our 13 years of experience to answer you.
Are tradelines a good idea in terms of effectiveness?
There’s no question that adding tradelines will have a positive impact on your credit score, provided the tradelines are in good standing. Despite this, tradelines may not help depending on where your credit starts and what your goal is. Given that we don’t know anything about your specific situation without talking to you first, it’s very hard to answer.
However, we have a good way to do it; We can give you a high-risk, medium-risk, low-risk answer.
Low risk: If you need 25 points or less, tradelines are a good idea.
Medium risk: If you need around 50 points, tradelines might be a good idea.
High risk: If you need 75 points or more, it could work, but it is less guaranteed.
If you want more detail with more accuracy, there are really two ways to go about it. First, you can read our study with over a thousand participants that shows the before and after results given different scenarios. Second, you can contact us and we can do a credit report analysis for you to determine whether or not tradelines are going to work given your specific circumstances and goals.
Are tradelines a good idea in terms of scams and ripoffs?
It’s a valid question to determine whether or not you’re working with a legitimate company. This is true of every single industry in the country. And it’s true of the trade line industry. We recently wrote an interesting blog article about the best tradeline companies. We encourage you to read it. We also wrote an article on tips on how to select the best tradeline company. We also encourage you to read that.
Some of the key points you should consider are how long a company has been in business, whether they answer your questions and sound like experts, and whether they seem to be interested in solving your problem versus taking your money. You can easily unmask all of those considerations.
Are tradelines a good idea in terms of regulations and laws?
To date, we know of no consumers getting in trouble for buying and using trade lines. However, there’s more to the story. Some consumers have engaged in illicit and illegal activity such as buying secondary Social Security numbers from prisoners and children and slapping tradelines on it. This practice is highly illegal and it’s called synthetic identity fraud.
If you’re simply looking to increase your credit score by buying tradelines, so far, this practice has not been made illegal. On the contrary. There’s some significant legal backing for the practice.
13 Dec 2023
To be upfront, the question “Do tradelines stay on your credit forever?” can be directed at two different things:
- Tradeline in general (accounts in your credit report, already)
- Authorized user tradelines (adding accounts to boost credit score).
We’re not really answering number 1.
There’s a bunch of stock answers for that, such as “accounts can stay on credit reports for up to seven years.” Experian had a great, quick answer to that question:
Instead, we’re answering number 2.
When you are added as an authorized user to a credit card, it can take up to 30 days for them to start reporting to your credit reports. Once reported, the tradelines can remain as long as someone keeps you as an authorized user. However, when the primary account holder removes you as an authorized user, the tradeline data will still report to your credit report. Once you are removed as an authorized user, the account is no longer reporting actively. even though the information remains in your credit reports. This means, the impact of the tradeline will go away over time. Eventually, the tradeline will fall off.
Tradelines do not stay on your credit forever. In our 13 years of experience, we’ve seen them stay as short as 90 days or as long as 8 years.
13 Dec 2023
I was asked to the other day, “what does a tradeline do?” It’s an interesting question, because tradelines have a definition but they also do something depending on certain circumstances. Let’s discuss both really quickly.
As we’ve explained in other articles, tradelines are accounts that appear in your credit report. It’s basically a report of your payment history inside of your credit report. This can be payment behavior on car loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc. Despite this definition, this only describes what tradelines are and not what tradelines do.
If someone is asking what trade lines do, they’re referring to the practice of piggybacking credit. Here’s what tradelines do: they impact your credit score, preferably in a good way. How do they do this? And, How do we make sure they impact your credit score in a good way?
Typically, this is achieved by adding authorized user accounts to your credit report. You inherit the history associated with those accounts. This is called piggybacking credit. If you’re added to an authorized user account with pre-existing history and positive standing, such as no missed payments as well as a high limit and low balance, it is likely to improve your credit score. We’ve studied the impact of trade lines over the years with over a thousand study participants and we’ve shown you the results on what you should expect.
Please comment below with any questions.