Vendors and Tradelines · Entry 10
Tradeline Myths and Sold Tradelines
Buying 'aged tradelines' means paying to be added as an authorized user on a stranger's seasoned account. On the personal side it is against card terms and increasingly filtered by scoring logic; on the business side, 'shelf corporations with credit' are the same pitch at ten times the price.
Why it matters
Every shortcut in this space transfers risk to you: the stranger's account behavior lands on your file, the seller keeps your fee either way, and lenders' fraud models are trained on exactly this pattern.
Key facts
- Card issuers can close accounts and strip authorized users when tradeline selling is detected - it violates cardmember agreements.
- FICO has acknowledged logic designed to discount abusive authorized-user patterns since 2007.
- Shelf corporations with 'established credit' rarely deliver real tradelines, and buying an entity with hidden liabilities is the larger risk.
- Legitimate AU relationships (family, real business partners) are not the target - purchased access is.
In practice
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Sources & further reading
FICO: authorized user abuse statements (2007) · FTC: credit repair and tradeline sale warnings · CFPB: credit repair organization risks
FICO: authorized user abuse statements (2007) · FTC: credit repair and tradeline sale warnings · CFPB: credit repair organization risks