Selling Tradelines / Piggybacking Part II: $1000+/hr, 20-40k/yr. Side Gig

[tj]

Yep, I received this email too:

A broker has notified us that your credit card line has not reported on the customer's report.  Sometimes this can happen by no fault of anyone's....however in an effort to be transparent, We want to show proof to our broker that the their customer was in fact added to your credit card as an Authorized User.  Please take a picture of the Authorized User's card that you received in the mail and upload it to the customers profile under CUSTOMER DOCUMENTS under OTHER TOOLS on our website.  If you need help or do not know how to do this please contact us A.S.A.P. and we will gladly help you with this small task.  VERY IMPORTANT.  When you take the pic of the users credit card COVER UP THE CREDIT CARD NUMBER COMPLETELY.   We do not want to see your card number. 

ARS is apparently able to sell tradelines while nomadic, but it's becoming quite the hassle.

[DavidAnnArbor]

It sounds like the new rule should be get the credit card for the authorized user, and then keep the credit card for the duration of the time you have the authorized user added on your card.

[secondcor521]

It sounds like the new rule should be get the credit card for the authorized user, and then keep the credit card for the duration of the time you have the authorized user added on your card.

New company has always advised me to keep the AU card after I receive it.  I only destroy it after removing the AU.

[katsiki]

On the portal, does "conf'd" next to Posted mean "confirmed"?  ie the AU posting properly was confirmed.

[TomTX]

It sounds like the new rule should be get the credit card for the authorized user, and then keep the credit card for the duration of the time you have the authorized user added on your card.

New company has always advised me to keep the AU card after I receive it.  I only destroy it after removing the AU.

That's been my method, easy way to track the AU is to just keep the card by my computer and shred when removed.

[kudy]

I sent in a photo of the front/back of the card in question and then wrote an email asking if I'd still be paid for the add - haven't heard back yet. I have kept issued cards for a few months afterward out of habit - happy I didn't shred this one, as this is the first time I've had a request like this.

[tj]

The email I received was re: Elan.

The subsequent email that they sent me:

Hi,

We are new to using Elan cards but we are finding that they are not reliable.  Your choice we can still send you adds for this card with  a minimal rate of posting or discontinue.  Let me know.

[DavidAnnArbor]

That explains why my Elan card wasn't getting any adds

[bigalsmith101]

Has anyone seen a correlation between credit score and the number of adds? Or do you think it's purely an age/credit limit combo?

Just wondering. It seems that US Bank and Discover have been my only cards to get requests, but I've gotten a couple/month so far.

[secondcor521]

Has anyone seen a correlation between credit score and the number of adds? Or do you think it's purely an age/credit limit combo?

Just wondering. It seems that US Bank and Discover have been my only cards to get requests, but I've gotten a couple/month so far.

The TL company does not get your credit score.  The only information they have is CC company, age, and credit limit (although they could get payment history from the AU's credit report if they wanted to - I doubt they do).

So I think it is mostly CL/age.  I get the most sales on my 11 year old $34K USAA CL.  Next is a Barclays 3 year old $32,500.  I had one sale, and it was recent, on a USBank 2 year $25K.  Oddly I have a 2 year USBank $58K with no orders yet.

The other thing that I suspect matters is the closing date.  I think most CC companies report to the credit bureaus on or shortly after the closing date.  AUs who want their scores boosted are probably in a hurry - they want to close on a house, or buy a car, or whatever - so they may choose to purchase a TL that closes and reports sooner rather than later.

[cheapass]

It sounds like the new rule should be get the credit card for the authorized user, and then keep the credit card for the duration of the time you have the authorized user added on your card.

New company has always advised me to keep the AU card after I receive it.  I only destroy it after removing the AU.

That's been my method, easy way to track the AU is to just keep the card by my computer and shred when removed.

Shit, I shredded all 3 of mine after I put small charges on them. I'll start keeping them now.

[arebelspy]

Everyone should have been paid for March's adds today.  Should be in the bank in 2-3 business days, but you should have received an email.

EDIT: I spoke too soon on the latter. The owner is going out of town for the weekend, so he wanted to get all payments out, but didn't also have time to send out the confirmation emails on that. If you see your AU is green in the portal, it posted, and you should be paid.  If it was a March sale under the old system (not in the portal), you should have been paid as well for that.

So payments are on their way.

If by, say, Tuesday, you have not received it in your bank account, PM me and I can check into it for you!  :)

[ducky19]

Thanks arebelspy, I have sent two emails about payment and was beginning to wonder!

[monarda]

Writing to report that the transition to the portal worked well for me. I've been paid and removed AUs for the adds I had pre-portal, and added my first two AUs the other day through the portal.  Thanks for the tip, ARS, I'll look in the portal to see when they turn green (they should choose other colors besides red/green for colorblind cardholders- magenta instead of red works)

It sounds like they are on the tail end of the transition to the portal. Hopefully it's as smooth for the rest of you once the March pre-portal adds complete their cycle.

[sirdoug007]

Everyone should have been paid for March's adds today.  Should be in the bank in 2-3 business days, but you should have received an email.

EDIT: I spoke too soon on the latter. The owner is going out of town for the weekend, so he wanted to get all payments out, but didn't also have time to send out the confirmation emails on that. If you see your AU is green in the portal, it posted, and you should be paid.  If it was a March sale under the old system (not in the portal), you should have been paid as well for that.

So payments are on their way.

If by, say, Tuesday, you have not received it in your bank account, PM me and I can check into it for you!  :)

When you say "March's adds" what are the add dates we are talking about?  I am thinking this means the AUs name is in the March column on the portal but wanted to confirm. 

My main card closes right around the beginning of the month so I had two adds in late March but these would be April adds correct?

[arebelspy]

When you say "March's adds" what are the add dates we are talking about?  I am thinking this means the AUs name is in the March column on the portal but wanted to confirm. 

My main card closes right around the beginning of the month so I had two adds in late March but these would be April adds correct?

Under "order history" you should have buttons for the months.  Click March. (If you don't have those buttons, set the search range at the top from 3/1 to 3/31).

If an order shows up there, it should have been paid (green if it posted, and then payment should be on the way, red if it didn't post).

[sirdoug007]

When you say "March's adds" what are the add dates we are talking about?  I am thinking this means the AUs name is in the March column on the portal but wanted to confirm. 

My main card closes right around the beginning of the month so I had two adds in late March but these would be April adds correct?

Under "order history" you should have buttons for the months.  Click March. (If you don't have those buttons, set the search range at the top from 3/1 to 3/31).

If an order shows up there, it should have been paid (green if it posted, and then payment should be on the way, red if it didn't post).

Thanks for the clarification!

[timmers78]

Finally got a couple adds after signing up early this year.  I know we are to select "yes" when asked if we want credit cards sent when adding AU's but do we actually activate them once received?

[katsiki]

Finally got a couple adds after signing up early this year.  I know we are to select "yes" when asked if we want credit cards sent when adding AU's but do we actually activate them once received?

I've done about 10 sales now and have not activated any.  Don't think it matters.

[secondcor521]

Finally got a couple adds after signing up early this year.  I know we are to select "yes" when asked if we want credit cards sent when adding AU's but do we actually activate them once received?

I've done about 10 sales now and have not activated any.  Don't think it matters.

I activate them all.

[secondcor521]

Anyone else get paid more than they expected for their March adds?

[tj]

Anyone else get paid more than they expected for their March adds?

I haven't received the $ for my March add.

[secondcor521]

Anyone else get paid more than they expected for their March adds?

I haven't received the $ for my March add.

OK.  Mine shows as pending at my bank and it is for $25 more than I expected.  I emailed new company owner, but just curious if it was a one off or systemic thing.

[TomTX]

Folks here may be interested  in this - apparently in many areas you can sign up to have the USPS email you images of your incoming (letter sized) mail when it's sorted. The sorting machines take images anyway, they decided to start making the images available to customers.

https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action

[HipGnosis]

Folks here may be interested  in this - apparently in many areas you can sign up to have the USPS email you images of your incoming (letter sized) mail when it's sorted. The sorting machines take images anyway, they decided to start making the images available to customers.

https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action

Why would you want that?

[TomTX]

Folks here may be interested  in this - apparently in many areas you can sign up to have the USPS email you images of your incoming (letter sized) mail when it's sorted. The sorting machines take images anyway, they decided to start making the images available to customers.

https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action

Why would you want that?

Maybe your mail carriers are perfect. Mine aren't (especially the Saturday/vacation fill-in guy) - I regularly get mail addressed to random neighbors. I often wonder if they are as good at redelivery as I am.

[CanuckExpat]

Finally got a couple adds after signing up early this year.  I know we are to select "yes" when asked if we want credit cards sent when adding AU's but do we actually activate them once received?

I have not been having cards sent.

[cheapass]

Got paid for my first add, $250 of "free" money straight to checking (and then Vanguard of course). Looking forward to another payment at the end of this month.

Thanks ARS!

[boarder42]

I think there are lots of people flooding these sites outside of us.  When Company 1 over here changed their policy and ARS found company 2.  there were large outflows from Company 1 to many other TL vendors.  The company i use appears to be getting me about as many adds as i would else where. 

the market is saturated with good vendors now it appears.

[frozen]

I am curious if anyone else is getting flooded with mail at their homes addressed to the authorized users? Also curious about the type of mail you may have received and if you have any insights into why/how this happens?

[DavidAnnArbor]

I am curious if anyone else is getting flooded with mail at their homes addressed to the authorized users? Also curious about the type of mail you may have received and if you have any insights into why/how this happens?

I am getting some mail for a couple of the authorized users, probably because my address was part of their credit report, and companies may want to offer them credit cards now or something.

[arebelspy]

I have never received mail for an AU.  But I use a mail service.  It may be worth paying for an online virtual mail box to do your AU sales from, if you do enough of them.

[powskier]

Finally got my first add after being signed up for over 120 days.
Discover is asking that I upload documents proving soc sec number/name/physical address over the next 10 days...anyone else had this?

[ZagNation]

I received a text today, referencing a past order: "Login to your Custom Documents and upload this credit card for [customer name]!"

I found the "Customer Documents" section of the online portal, but I am not sure what they want - a photo of the credit card?

Today I too received a similar text message and email requesting me to upload a photo of the Citibank AU credit cards...which I do not have because I destroyed them for my two April adds. I provided a screenshot proving both AUs were successfully added (a balance also posted) and asked them to advise me how to proceed. Has anyone else received similar communication? Would it raise a red flag for Citi if I requested additional cards for the AUs to be mailed to me?

Providing a brief update. I received confirmation that I could disregard this notification as you do not need to provide a copy of the of card for the authorized user or a photo of card, YMMV. It appears that in this instance, their programmer inadvertently inputted the incorrect draft of the email that should have gone out to me. Sadly I was informed that my two adds did not post to my credit file for April*. My billing cycle closes today so I'll provide a subsequent update if the AUs post for May, although I was told it is unlikely.

*This may be due to Citi mistakenly closing this card instead of a different Citi card that got hit with some fraudulent charges within the same day I received notification to add the AUs for April. Even though the AUs were added successfully it took a couple days to resolve and re-open the card.

Arebelspy why don't you start a tradeline company so that you can put all our good credit lines to use?

Well, this may be finally happening.  This post is to gauge interest.

I may be partnering with someone to sell tradelines privately.  Met with him in person last week. (Met with owner of the current company, also, incidentally, the next day.)

Have already been selling some lines, just in the past week (and he's been selling some privately for about 10 months).  The downside you'd face here versus the currently recommended company (and even the old company) is much less time in the business and experience, i.e. none.  We'd be figuring it out as we go.  Likely higher risk of card closure. No portal.

The upside is a higher commission schedule and/or more slots sold (rather than taking on dozens or hundreds of cardholders, we'd start with a small handful, sell out all their slots, then add more slowly, as we increase capacity).

I may soon ask if people want to beta their cards with me.

I'd still recommend most people use the currently recommended company.  But if you have a card you are okay burning to try for a bit getting high commissions and lots of sales, it may be something you're interested in.  (And, obviously, we're following basically the same guidelines in terms of slots per card issuer as the other TL companies, and we'll be verifying AUs, and hoping not to have any cards cancelled, but we would make mistakes, so I wouldn't be surprised if our closure rate is higher.)

FWIW, I don't know why some Mustachian didn't decide to start a tradeline company--this has been on the forums since last July, almost 10 months now, and it took an outsider who found the thread through Googling to start something.  Seems like a good way to make a LOT of money, i.e. in the millions. I'm just not interested in doing it all myself due to the work involved. Still surprised some entrepreneur here didn't go for it. I think if you're willing to put in 60-80 hours/week initially, and 30-40 going forward, you can make millions if you can scale it.  Then again, maybe most here are close enough to FI not to want to start a whole business.  :)

This is probably a silly question Joe but hypothetically speaking, your tradeline company is successful and you are inviting/selecting Mustachians to beta their cards, we cannot double dip and use an existing card at more than one tradeline company? I assume this would drastically increase the probability of closure, just want to confirm.

MOD EDIT: Left this thread in this post, rather than splitting it over to the new thread, due to the first half, but the second half of this post was answered here.  /END EDIT.

[Greenback Reproduction Specialist]

posting to follow

[arebelspy]

MOD NOTE:
Discussion on launching a Mustachian tradeline company has been split to a new thread in the Entrepeneurship subforum

Arebelspy's Mustachian Tradeline Company

Please take any discussion of creating a new TL company there; general discussion about tradeline sales, and new and old company will remain here.

Cheers!

[whitedragon]

Finally got my first add after being signed up for over 120 days.
Discover is asking that I upload documents proving soc sec number/name/physical address over the next 10 days...anyone else had this?

Speaking of being signed up for over 120 days and not getting an add...

I got an email Monday night asking if I had made the adds requested before the deadline, and to not bother if I had not.  I checked my email, noting no correspondence of any kind, and replied stating as such.

I got a rather terse reply stating that I should check my junk email folder and to ensure that I had signed up for SMS alerts.  (I already had upon signup.)

I sent a reply back stating that I don't have anything on the website, in my email or on my phone telling me to do anything, and that I have not had any activity since signup in late December, and that there possibly is an error in their database.

Waiting for the reply, but I'm starting to feel like Sol a little bit here.

[Joel]

There seems to be some breakdowns related to the email communications being generated from their system. I've received email notifications regarding AU adds. However, for the March payment that ARS posted about last week, I never received an email confirming payment was on it's way. However, the money arrived in my account yesterday!

[charuhans]

There seems to be some breakdowns related to the email communications being generated from their system. I've received email notifications regarding AU adds. However, for the March payment that ARS posted about last week, I never received an email confirming payment was on it's way. However, the money arrived in my account yesterday!

Well, no email nor the payment has arrived for me for the March adds. I sent an email to the owner asking for a confirmation that payment was sent but no response yet.

[sol]

Waiting for the reply, but I'm starting to feel like Sol a little bit here.

For the record, my adds have gone smoothly once we switched to the online portal.  March was just recently paid.

And in email correspondences the owner has seemed responsive to concerns.  I think they're still struggling with the portal migration, so hopefully things will calm down once that's under control.

[MasterStache]

Sounds like they are going through the long list of Mustachians that signed up. I received adds immediately upon signing up in early Jan, one in Feb and not a peep since. I have a fantastic card signed up as well. Not sure who all if anyone is seeing consistent adds (besides ARS). My cards actually say "resting" on the portal. 

[tj]

There seems to be some breakdowns related to the email communications being generated from their system. I've received email notifications regarding AU adds. However, for the March payment that ARS posted about last week, I never received an email confirming payment was on it's way. However, the money arrived in my account yesterday!

Well, no email nor the payment has arrived for me for the March adds. I sent an email to the owner asking for a confirmation that payment was sent but no response yet.

Same here. I got an out of office auto reply.

[Joel]

I think a lot depends on what cards you signed up. I have a feeling that certain cards are less desirable combined with their being a high supply of those cards. Which in turn means less sales - so far.

[Shade00]

Do I have to email the company to increase the limit on a currently-active card? Just got my Discover increased to $21.9k.

[tj]

Do I have to email the company to increase the limit on a currently-active card? Just got my Discover increased to $21.9k.

you create a ticket in the portal. That will send them an email.

[Shade00]

Do I have to email the company to increase the limit on a currently-active card? Just got my Discover increased to $21.9k.

you create a ticket in the portal. That will send them an email.

Thanks. Just submitted a ticket.

[frogstomp81]

For any USAA card holders: How do you answer the employment question when calling USAA to add the AU? I say self employed as instructed by the company, and it just opens up a whole bunch of other questions that I really wasn't prepared for... anyone found an easy answer that won't lead to additional questions that we haven't been provided the answer to?

[secondcor521]

For any USAA card holders: How do you answer the employment question when calling USAA to add the AU? I say self employed as instructed by the company, and it just opens up a whole bunch of other questions that I really wasn't prepared for... anyone found an easy answer that won't lead to additional questions that we haven't been provided the answer to?

Nope.  It does seem that USAA is using the answers you give to fill out a customer profile that they have to create for each AU before they add them to your credit card.  I think it's to comply with the anti-terrorist "Know your customer" laws.  I think as long as your answers are consistent and reasonable you will be able to add the AUs.

[hoodedfalcon]

For whatever reason, I have only been asked the employer question on my USAA adds once (out of 3). And it was awkward. No, I don't know what Mr. X's degree is in, and why does it matter? It freaked me out at the time since it was my first add but since then it hasn't happened. I think it depends maybe on what you say your relationship to the person is? I think for the first one I said "business associate" or something. For the other adds I think I said contractor.

[frogstomp81]

Yeah I got asked 3 out of 4 times so far. I've been able to make all the adds so far. I was really caught off guard the first time they asked but managed to make it through. Just looking for an easier way. Thanks for the help.