adding positive creditlines?

[shakyground]

does being linked to positive credit work? such as being linked via seasoned trades.com?

[Tuscani]

Absolutely!

[masdeocho]

I find it amazing that Seasoned Trade Lines will charge you money so that you can be an authorized user on the account of a complete stranger who has great credit, yet their site disclaimer says "This service is not sold to defraud or scam current past, current, or future creditors ... Seasoned Trade Lines are NOT sold as a quick fix for those who want to cheat the system!"

That's EXACTLY what is happening.

[Barry]

For more on adding authorized user trade lines, check out the article, Piggyback can lift your score, currently on www.bankrate.com.

-Barry

[LadyFICO]

I believe the fees are horrible. Are you considering using it? If one could afford such fees one could apply that money to bring down util on cc's. It seems to boost your score just as quick. Besides there is more satisfaction in doing it yourself. If you can buy your way out you may see it as a quick fix and the person's attitude of the habit that got them in a bad situation may not change. Unless it is someone with limited credit hx but it is still pricey! No one can ensure how much or how soon your score would be affected. I don't know if those type of places offer money back guarantees!

[MikeToreno]

I think the fees are reasonable for what they're doing. They're giving you the ability to put information into your credit file that does not reflect your own behavior. They're offering you the opportunity to mislead the bank about the risk you represent. You can get quite a substantial increase in your score by doing nothing. Another thing you have to consider is that some people do this right before shopping for mortgages, so they get better rates than they're entitled to, and then quit using the service. So I have no complaint that the fees are too high; my concern is that I think the whole enterprise is criminal. My concern is that it's clearly dishonest, and probably illegal. I wouldn't be surprised if people start going to jail. Look at it. You are on the card as an "authorized user" but you are NOT an authorized user, because you can't use the card. So how are you an authorized user, and how is paying to be represented as an authorized user anything other than a fraudulent act? The whole enterprise is going to be shut down soon, I think. I did find out some useful information by learning about it, though; I made some changes to the authorized status of myself and my wife on our cards. I added myself to a couple of her cards with zero balances, and did the same for her with a couple of my cards, and took her off of a couple of my cards with big balances.

[masdeocho]

Well said, MikeToreno.

When I saw that they were paying people hundreds or thousands of $ to use their credit lines, for about 2 seconds I thought, hey, I've got good credit, here's a way I could make a lot of money by doing nothing.  Then I thought, what are you, stupid? It took many years of work to get that good credit, and I'm going to risk it all by giving my account info to some shady company on the Internet so that I can have 99 AUs riding tandem on my AmEx?  Soooooooo not happening.

[HouseHunter]

I was curious so I did a search and found one of these sites.  Once you get your score above 700+ and have a positive payment history for 2 years then they begin adding others to YOUR TL's.  Now, if someone were added to a TL as an AU and decided all of a sudden that they wanted a card and a little extra cash, couldn't they just ring up the CC company and say "Hey, I lost my card and need a new one"?  Is there any guarantee that the CC company wouldn't send them a "new" card?  Well, that's a chance that I wouldn't be willing to take because I'm working hard to establish my credit and I'll be darned if I'm going to let some crook try to not only rob me but sabotage my hard work.  Yeah, I'd like to see a 100+ point increase in my scores but not with that sort of risk!

[dallas01]

I was added as a AU on my father in laws BOA card. My score jumped 15 points. After another month of credit repair and opening up high risk cards, I've decided I would rather not have that on my account. For some reason it just doesn't feel as good compared to me doing it on my own.

[LadyFICO]

My point exactly if you don't get the satisfaction of doing it yourself, how do you change the behavior that got you there? Also, when you realize how mature and responsible you have to be you will not mess that up quite so easily.

It's like getting an A on the test because you studied hard or getting an a because you got a copy of the test with answers the day prior. Same result but you cheated the system as well as yourself.