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

  1. S
  2. p
  3. e
  4. n
  5. d
  6. t
  7. r
  8. a
  9. d
  10. e
  11. l
  12. i
  13. n
  14. e
  15. m
  16. o
  17. n
  18. e
  19. y
  20. o
  21. n
  22. a
  23. c
  24. r
  25. e
  26. d
  27. i
  28. t
  29. -
  30. b
  31. u
  32. i
  33. l
  34. d
  35. e
  36. r
  37. l
  38. o
  39. a
  40. n
  41. a
  42. n
  43. d
  44. t
  45. h
  46. r
  47. e
  48. e
  49. r
  50. e
  51. a
  52. l
  53. v
  54. e
  55. n
  56. d
  57. o
  58. r
  59. a
  60. c
  61. c
  62. o
  63. u
  64. n
  65. t
  66. s
  67. i
  68. n
  69. s
  70. t
  71. e
  72. a
  73. d
  74. -
  75. s
  76. l
  77. o
  78. w
  79. e
  80. r
  81. b
  82. y
  83. t
  84. w
  85. o
  86. q
  87. u
  88. a
  89. r
  90. t
  91. e
  92. r
  93. s
  94. ,
  95. p
  96. e
  97. r
  98. m
  99. a
  100. n
  101. e
  102. n
  103. t
  104. f
  105. o
  106. r
  107. a
  108. d
  109. e
  110. c
  111. a
  112. d
  113. e
  114. .
Sources & further reading
FICO: authorized user abuse statements (2007) · FTC: credit repair and tradeline sale warnings · CFPB: credit repair organization risks