What Is Tradeline Renting?
Tradeline renting is the process of paying a fee to be added as an authorized user to a revolving credit account, thereby allowing the authorized user tradeline to be added to your credit report. It is a form of credit piggybacking that takes advantage of the benefits of authorized user tradelines.
Is Renting Tradelines Different from Buying Tradelines?
“Renting tradelines” and “buying tradelines” both refer to the same transaction. The reason it is sometimes referred to as “tradeline renting” is that the consumer will only temporarily be listed as an active authorized user on the tradeline. Typically, an authorized user will be active on the tradeline for two reporting cycles, which is akin to renting the tradeline for two months.
However, after the authorized user is removed and the tradeline appears as closed, it will still remain as part of the authorized user’s permanent credit history for as long as the bank continues to report the tradeline, which can be up to 10 years.
Therefore, the term “buying tradelines” also makes sense, because the closed tradeline will stay on the user’s credit report for a longer period of time.
If you are new to tradeline renting, you may want to explore these educational resources found in our Knowledge Center:
Tradeline renting can affect several age-related variables.
What Are the Benefits of Tradeline Renting?
Renting a tradeline adds the authorized user tradeline and its associated credit history to your credit report. By renting a tradeline, you get all of the age, perfect payment history, and low utilization of that account reported as part of your credit history.
Since age is the most powerful factor of a tradeline, a well-seasoned tradeline could be a valuable addition to your credit file.
Tradelines can affect several different age-related variables, such as the average age of accounts, age of oldest account, and number of seasoned tradelines versus unseasoned tradelines, to name a few examples.
As we have discussed in “Tradelines: What You Should Know About Building Credit,” tradeline renting can also play a role in other factors, such as your overall utilization ratio and your mix of accounts.
While we do not provide credit repair services, tradeline renting can be an ideal complement to credit repair services, since credit repair removes inaccurate information while tradelines can positive information. [Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links.]
Is Tradeline Renting Legal?
Although Tradeline Supply Company, LLC is not a legal authority, according to the U.S. Congress, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Trade Commission, it is legal to rent tradelines.
Although FICO tried to eliminate the benefits of tradeline renting in 2008, they admitted in a congressional hearing that they could not legally do so, because it would violate the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).
The U.S. Congress protected consumers’ ability to rent authorized user tradelines.
ECOA prohibits discrimination against borrowers based on marital status. Since most financial institutions do not indicate whether or not an authorized user is a spouse of the primary account holder, all authorized user accounts must be considered equally, including those that are rented.
We provide an in-depth discussion of the legality of tradeline renting in our article, “Are Tradelines Legal?”
How to Rent Tradelines
You can rent tradelines through a reputable tradeline company, such as Tradeline Supply Company, LLC. On our website, simply navigate to “Buy Tradelines,” select the tradelines you want to rent, and check out directly on our secure site. After that, all you have to do is wait for the tradelines to post!
For detailed instructions on how to purchase your tradeline rentals, see “How to Purchase Tradelines and What to Expect.”
When renting tradelines, you definitely want to be sure to avoid companies with questionable business practices and choose a company that has your best interests at heart.
Here are some resources to help guide you in choosing a company to rent tradelines from and how to choose which tradelines to rent:
