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

[Orin!]

Read this: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10096.pdf

Thanks Orin! It's a legal document, and my head gets a little dizzy whenever it comes to reading such, but I think there are answers to my questions:
- No I won't be able to work outside the US & get an SSN, at least at 1st.
- Working is still the best method.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. For the last part of my questions, maybe I'd have to post at the 'Ask a Mustachian' forum...

The short version - with my brief understanding - is you have to get a USA work visa and then you can get a ssn. I do not know all the ins and outs on getting a work visa but I do not think it would be worth it just to get a ssn to build credit and eventually have lines worth selling for tradelines. To get a work visa I believe you would need to get someone to sponsor you and there would be fees.

[CanuckExpat]

If you want to get a US credit card from another country, this series of posts (seven in all) may help: How To Get US Credit Cards

It's aimed at Canadians who want to get US credit cards for sign on bonuses, credit card points, etc, but the same ideas should work (I have to say, that's advance credit card churning there, kudos to them).

Haven't read entire series of steps, but seems to be something like this:
Get individual tax identifier number (ITIN), to use in lieu of social, since you are correct, as a non US resident you won't get a social. But it is very possibly you might have US source income, such as royalties. So you sign up for some kind of book writing account, use the possibility of royalties as justification for an ITIN. You open an Amex in your home country, then apply for an Amex in the US using your home country credit, you tie that new American Amex to the ITIN you just got. You wait and hope to build a credit profile in the US from that Amex which now reports to the US credit reporting agencies with your ITIN. You then apply for more cards. While doing all that, you also have to set up a virtual US mailbox, US phone numbers, US banking etc. Hopefully the series covers it all

YMMV. Good luck if you try.

[longtry]

You two are very kind. Orin! It's beginning to dawn on me that maybe it's not worth it, as you said. Following CanuckExpat's mentioned way incurs different fees on its own. Not to mention even if I'm successful after a long quest to have 10+ credit cards, I'd still have to spend on stuffs to build up my score & suffer the annual fees for nearly 10 years before they're ripe for tradelines.
Secondly, I'm too unfamiliar with the scene that I don't have the proper numbers; and even if I had, I wouldn't be able crunch the numbers to see if it's a worthy investment or not.

[merula]

You two are very kind. Orin! It's beginning to dawn on me that maybe it's not worth it, as you said. Following CanuckExpat's mentioned way incurs different fees on its own. Not to mention even if I'm successful after a long quest to have 10+ credit cards, I'd still have to spend on stuffs to build up my score & suffer the annual fees for nearly 10 years before they're ripe for tradelines.
Secondly, I'm too unfamiliar with the scene that I don't have the proper numbers; and even if I had, I wouldn't be able crunch the numbers to see if it's a worthy investment or not.

You don't need a good credit score to sell tradelines, all that matters is that the tradeline in question is clean: low credit utilization, no late payments. All your other credit pieces could be crap (or nonexistent), but that doesn't hurt the tradeline buyer.

You also don't have to pay annual fees to sell tradelines. It's just that most people participating from this forum started with credit card churning (in which you sign up for a bunch of cards to get the bonuses), and bonuses are higher for annual-fee cards, so those were the cards available to a lot of people when they learned about tradelines.

[longtry]

You don't need a good credit score to sell tradelines, all that matters is that the tradeline in question is clean: low credit utilization, no late payments. All your other credit pieces could be crap (or nonexistent), but that doesn't hurt the tradeline buyer.
You also don't have to pay annual fees to sell tradelines. It's just that most people participating from this forum started with credit card churning (in which you sign up for a bunch of cards to get the bonuses), and bonuses are higher for annual-fee cards, so those were the cards available to a lot of people when they learned about tradelines.

That bolded part is quite an eye-opener for me, merula :) Then from an MMM or any financial-aware guy's perspective, there's no reason not to churn the cards! Could you please point me to some thread or article that teaches the know-how?
A question about credit score: what would be my score if I just register for a card & leave it as is? Or should I just buy 1 & only 1 thing, pay it back right away & enjoy all the mentioned prerequisites of low credit utilization & no late payments for, like, eternity?

[merula]

A question about credit score: what would be my score if I just register for a card & leave it as is? Or should I just buy 1 & only 1 thing, pay it back right away & enjoy all the mentioned prerequisites of low credit utilization & no late payments for, like, eternity?

Credit scoring is intentionally opaque, so it's impossible to know for sure, but there are two basic ways that having an account impacts your score: percent of credit utilized and record of on-time payments.

Having an open account will decrease your percent of credit utilized, but only making charges and therefore payments on the card will impact the record of on-time payments. This is why you have to make charges when you're selling tradelines, so there's a sale that reports to the bureaus. This is also probably the source of the misconception that you have to carry a balance to build credit; you don't, but that's what some people interpret "payments" to mean.

[beekayworld]

Or should I just buy 1 & only 1 thing, pay it back right away & enjoy all the mentioned prerequisites of low credit utilization & no late payments for, like, eternity?

For the bonuses, you will probably have to spend a certain amount of money in the first few months. For example, charge $2000 on the card in the first 3 months.

With trade lines the eternity part of your statement makes sense. Without trade lines, I would cancel the card before the one-year anniversary in order to avoid the annual fee. An annual fee of $95 or $199 is acceptable if I'm getting even one sale on the card per year.

[robartsd]

That bolded part is quite an eye-opener for me, merula :) Then from an MMM or any financial-aware guy's perspective, there's no reason not to churn the cards! Could you please point me to some thread or article that teaches the know-how?

There's a journal here on the forums dedicated to credit card churning and how to manufacture spending to meet the spending requirements of the sign up bonuses.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/1-2million-miles-and-counting/

For the bonuses, you will probably have to spend a certain amount of money in the first few months. For example, charge $2000 on the card in the first 3 months.

With trade lines the eternity part of your statement makes sense. Without trade lines, I would cancel the card before the one-year anniversary in order to avoid the annual fee. An annual fee of $95 or $199 is acceptable if I'm getting even one sale on the card per year.

Another reason for canceling the card when churning is that sometimes you can get the sign up bonus for a credit card product again if you haven't had that product for more than a year or two. Typical churning pattern is: apply for the card, get the card, meet the spend requirement, pay off the balance, collect the bonus, cancel the card. It doesn't usually take more than a few months per card if you meet the spend requirement quickly. Usually the bonus isn't available to collect until a month or two after the statement where you first fulfilled all the requirements.

[erutio]

I used to be a churner, but selling tradelines is MUCH more lucrative, and for far less work.

The two activities aren't entirely mutually exclusive, but there are some conflicts.  For tradeline selling, you want to build your credit limits up and let them age, while with churning, you don't really care about credit limits or age as long as you meet the spend requirements, and you're constantly opening/closing cards.   

So what I do now is, every year, I pick 2 or 3 cards, novel to me, that have good sign-up bonuses.  Go through the process to get the bonuses, then don't close the cards.  Let them age, and then refer them to the TL companies when they mature.  Because I don't close the cards, I can't get repeat bonuses, but that's ok, like I said, because selling the TLs is so much more lucrative.  I'm on year 3 of this, and I'm running out of cards to sign up for. 

[HBFIRE]

I used to be a churner, but selling tradelines is MUCH more lucrative, and for far less work.

The two activities aren't entirely mutually exclusive, but there are some conflicts.  For tradeline selling, you want to build your credit limits up and let them age, while with churning, you don't really care about credit limits or age as long as you meet the spend requirements, and you're constantly opening/closing cards.   

So what I do now is, every year, I pick 2 or 3 cards, novel to me, that have good sign-up bonuses.  Go through the process to get the bonuses, then don't close the cards.  Let them age, and then refer them to the TL companies when they mature.  Because I don't close the cards, I can't get repeat bonuses, but that's ok, like I said, because selling the TLs is so much more lucrative.  I'm on year 3 of this, and I'm running out of cards to sign up for.

Cards you want to churn carry Annual Fees.  Banks have no problem "downgrading" these to no AF versions.  So you can just downgrade the card into a no AF version right before 1 year of opening, and then sell the tradeline when it hits 2 years.  You'll then be able to later churn that card again (usually after 2 yrs) since its no longer the original version.  Churning is lucrative too, don't leave money on the table!  Hell, I just converted my amex point earnings from 2 cards to $1750 of Charles Schwab index funds (love their super low cost international fund). Not bad for a 2 card churn.

[justwantFI]

So I tried to enter the game with the old company and got back this email. Seems like they went very strict on the cards they are accepting now. Very few banks and harder limits.

Thank you for your interest in our program! We are currently only looking for cards with a minimum $10,000 credit limit, at least 5 years of history, and from one of the following bank issuers: Barclay, Discover, PNC, USAA, Elan, Cap One

[LukeS]

So I tried to enter the game with the old company and got back this email. Seems like they went very strict on the cards they are accepting now. Very few banks and harder limits.

Thank you for your interest in our program! We are currently only looking for cards with a minimum $10,000 credit limit, at least 5 years of history, and from one of the following bank issuers: Barclay, Discover, PNC, USAA, Elan, Cap One

Wow! That's kind of playing a long-game, for me to sign up for cards to maybe be able to sell tradelines on them in 5 years

[arebelspy]

The "new" tradeline co takes ones two years old. There are some shady TL companies that take ones brand new if you want to go that route.

"Old" TL company was taking ones as low as two years in April, and giving a signup bonus. For the moment, they have enough lines, so bumped the minimums.

They'll lower it again at some point as either cards are cancelled, withdrawn, or business grows, I'm sure.

[katsiki]

They'll lower it again at some point as either cards are cancelled, withdrawn, or business grows, I'm sure.

+1. Came to post this.

Supply and demand is in full effect in this cottage industry.

[longtry]

I would cancel the card before the one-year anniversary in order to avoid the annual fee.

Then it would cost you practically nothing, aside from some telephone call fee & time to manage the stuff, am I getting it right? :)

Oh, on a 2nd look, it seems I misinterpreted merula's comment. The bonuses are bigger for annual-fee cards doesn't mean they are bigger than the annual fees. Not to mention that usually the bonuses come in form of air miles (that link robartsd kindly show me) or gift cards, coupons... In other words, you have to spend more on stuffs to get the bonuses - which seems to contradict the MMM spirit, no?

I just converted my amex point earnings from 2 cards to $1750 of Charles Schwab index funds (love their super low cost international fund).

Wow this is great, for it looks like there are ways to convert bonuses to cash! And my country has Amex, too! Could you elaborate a little more?

[HBFIRE]

And my country has Amex, too! Could you elaborate a little more?

The Charles Schwab Amex Platinum card allows you to convert all your MR points at a rate of 1.25 into your brokerage (i have no idea if they have this offer outside the US).  It's actually not that great of an exchange rate, you can do better with flights, etc.  But I love the idea of having something to show for my churning, in this case index funds -- plus i only need so many flights.  It's about as "mustachian" as you can get.  I'm seeing how quickly I can get this fund to 20 K from just churning rewards.

[secondcor521]

The bonuses are bigger for annual-fee cards doesn't mean they are bigger than the annual fees. Not to mention that usually the bonuses come in form of air miles (that link robartsd kindly show me) or gift cards, coupons... In other words, you have to spend more on stuffs to get the bonuses - which seems to contradict the MMM spirit, no?

The good ones are bigger than the first year annual fee.  Sometimes not bigger than the first two annual fees.

As for the second part, there are ways to spend money in the credit card sense without spending money in the MMM sense.  ;-)

[PennySaved75]

Has anyone ever had the same AU make a second request to be added to one of your tradelines?  I just got an email from new company asking me to add "X" as an AU to my Discover card.  The "X" name rang a bell, so I checked and I had added this same person as an AU to my Citibank card in Sept 2017.  This seems weird to me, but I guess someone is wanting to bump their credit score up higher than before.

[katsiki]

Has anyone ever had the same AU make a second request to be added to one of your tradelines?  I just got an email from new company asking me to add "X" as an AU to my Discover card.  The "X" name rang a bell, so I checked and I had added this same person as an AU to my Citibank card in Sept 2017.  This seems weird to me, but I guess someone is wanting to bump their credit score up higher than before.

Has not happened to me but I would not be alarmed.

[dragoncar]

Has anyone ever had the same AU make a second request to be added to one of your tradelines?  I just got an email from new company asking me to add "X" as an AU to my Discover card.  The "X" name rang a bell, so I checked and I had added this same person as an AU to my Citibank card in Sept 2017.  This seems weird to me, but I guess someone is wanting to bump their credit score up higher than before.

Has not happened to me but I would not be alarmed.

The trade lines sell packages like “two high limit cards plus 4 newer cards for $2000”

So the trade line may try to match clients that are already on your trade line since it makes it seem more legitimate (one less strange address on their credit report)

[secondcor521]

Has anyone ever had the same AU make a second request to be added to one of your tradelines?  I just got an email from new company asking me to add "X" as an AU to my Discover card.  The "X" name rang a bell, so I checked and I had added this same person as an AU to my Citibank card in Sept 2017.  This seems weird to me, but I guess someone is wanting to bump their credit score up higher than before.

Has not happened to me but I would not be alarmed.

The trade lines sell packages like “two high limit cards plus 4 newer cards for $2000”

So the trade line may try to match clients that are already on your trade line since it makes it seem more legitimate (one less strange address on their credit report)

I had one AU that I added to two different lines, but it was basically at the same time, not time shifted like the above instance.

[PatronWizard11]

can anyone recommend or give me a referral to a good site to start selling tradeline?

[katsiki]

I wanted to put out a PSA of sorts. 

There is a poster who PM'd me suggesting a new company.  The web site sounded familiar, so I contacted @arebelspy .  He confirmed that it was one discussed previously in the thread and that this company did not properly vet AUs (in his view, which I trust).  If you received such a PM recently from another forum member, I would suggest you read back through the thread before making a decision.

I am only putting this out there because I don't want to see anyone burned by bad AUs.

[Number3]

Discover locked my card today. I called them and they said they just wanted to make sure it was me who added five AUthorized Users recently. I said yes it was. They said ok - we just unlocked your card.

[Car Jack]

I wanted to put out a PSA of sorts. 

There is a poster who PM'd me suggesting a new company.  The web site sounded familiar, so I contacted @arebelspy .  He confirmed that it was one discussed previously in the thread and that this company did not properly vet AUs (in his view, which I trust).  If you received such a PM recently from another forum member, I would suggest you read back through the thread before making a decision.

I am only putting this out there because I don't want to see anyone burned by bad AUs.

Stick with the companies Joe recommends.  I tried out that "other" company thinking <Jeremy Clarkson voice> "What could possibly go wrong?".  Well, one of 2 AUs turned out to have used a stolen credit card with the company.  Great.  I extracted myself.

Got my first payment from the "old" company along with the first AU bonus.  Big payday for me.

[hgjjgkj]

Anyone have a feel for the vintage and limits the Old and New Company are looking for these days? I am a credit card churner and have several cards about to hit their one year so I am trying to see where it is best to add these. (Most of them generally have greater than an 11k limit)

[Car Jack]

2 years old minimum.  $10k credit limit minimum.  Both companies, unless something's changed since I signed up (I have heard rumors that they're requiring higher numbers for both for new cards).  Probably best to ask the company directly what their specific requirements are.

[maginvizIZ]

I've been with the "new" company for a little over 2 weeks now... Not a word. :|

Anyone else not getting AUs?  I have 3 cards up (2 years old, 10k each).  Hmm...

[chuckster]

I've been with the "new" company for a little over 2 weeks now... Not a word. :|

Anyone else not getting AUs?  I have 3 cards up (2 years old, 10k each).  Hmm...

I think this is the slow time of year. I've been filled up every month on my Barclays card all year until this one (only a few days until my August closing date). My other cards are empty this month too, first time this year for that as well.

[Padonak]

I've been with the "new" company for a little over 2 weeks now... Not a word. :|

Anyone else not getting AUs?  I have 3 cards up (2 years old, 10k each).  Hmm...

I think this is the slow time of year. I've been filled up every month on my Barclays card all year until this one (only a few days until my August closing date). My other cards are empty this month too, first time this year for that as well.

I only got one sale from the "New company" this year even though I have a few cards registered with it. Nothing wrong with my cards either.

[beekayworld]

I've been with the "new" company for a little over 2 weeks now... Not a word. :|

Anyone else not getting AUs?  I have 3 cards up (2 years old, 10k each).  Hmm...

I'm with the new company and noticed that when I add a new card, the "My Cards" page on their website shows "UNAVAILABLE" for both cells/fields for the month in which I added the card; and only shows "AVAILABLE" for the next months after the month in which the card was added. 

Look on your "My Cards" page and click the blue "expand all" bar.  There's an array with the months labeled at the top and two (or three) cells in each column.  They either say "AVAILABLE", "UNAVAILABLE" or "John Smith" (have the name of the AU).

[ducky19]

Has anyone ever had the same AU make a second request to be added to one of your tradelines?  I just got an email from new company asking me to add "X" as an AU to my Discover card.  The "X" name rang a bell, so I checked and I had added this same person as an AU to my Citibank card in Sept 2017.  This seems weird to me, but I guess someone is wanting to bump their credit score up higher than before.

Data point - just had this happen to me for the first time on a Barclay card. AU asked to stay on for another two months, easiest $175 I ever made!

[chuckster]

I've been with the "new" company for a little over 2 weeks now... Not a word. :|

Anyone else not getting AUs?  I have 3 cards up (2 years old, 10k each).  Hmm...

I'm with the new company and noticed that when I add a new card, the "My Cards" page on their website shows "UNAVAILABLE" for both cells/fields for the month in which I added the card; and only shows "AVAILABLE" for the next months after the month in which the card was added. 

Look on your "My Cards" page and click the blue "expand all" bar.  There's an array with the months labeled at the top and two (or three) cells in each column.  They either say "AVAILABLE", "UNAVAILABLE" or "John Smith" (have the name of the AU).

Your card can only be sold before the month closing date, too. Plus however much time it takes to get out there to attract a buyer. If you add a new card on July 3rd, and the closing date for your July bill is July 9th, you're probably not going to get a sale in July.

It seems most sales come in the week before the closing date. Makes sense, no one wants to buy a tradeline and then wait five or six weeks for it to hit their report.

[arebelspy]

Hey everyone,

I got a new baby on the way and I’m in Desperate need of an extra income. How’s the authorized user business? Is it dependable? How long does it take to get started? I’ve done my research and found a few companies but they have no reviews. I would appreciate your feedback  on your companies to see which one I should choose and trust.

Congrats on the upcoming little one!

Tradeline sales are still going pretty steady. Some people have seen shut downs, some people have seen more sales, some less.

It really depends on the quality and quantity of your cards (and some randomness). Most people are making anywhere from a few hundred dollars a year with just a couple of sales to a few thousand dollars a year (a few sales every few months times a few cards). Those with a lot of cards that are older (and seeing sales every month on multiple cards) are seeing low five-figure income, but I think the $2000-5000 range is much more common. A bit more info in this earlier post.

I've sent you a PM with the companies I recommend. It's pretty important to pick a good tradeline company, they're the shield for you against fraud and bad actors, as Car Jack mentions here.

Anyone can always feel free to PM me if you want a referral/more info/have questions.

[DarrellEW]

Is anyone else worried about having their home address on a bunch of random people's credit reports?

I'm planning on moving in the next year or so, and wondering if I should pay for a UPS Store box or travelling mailbox service for all my banking going forward, including AU sales. I could make up the ~$200/yr in AU sales pretty easily, but wondering if I'm just being paranoid and throwing money away.

[solon]

Is anyone else worried about having their home address on a bunch of random people's credit reports?

I'm planning on moving in the next year or so, and wondering if I should pay for a UPS Store box or travelling mailbox service for all my banking going forward, including AU sales. I could make up the ~$200/yr in AU sales pretty easily, but wondering if I'm just being paranoid and throwing money away.

I bought a tradeline once. (I think everyone who wants to sell tradelines should buy at least one.)

I didn't get any info about the cardholder. Just info about the card: open date, current balance, payment history.

[DarrellEW]

Is anyone else worried about having their home address on a bunch of random people's credit reports?

I'm planning on moving in the next year or so, and wondering if I should pay for a UPS Store box or travelling mailbox service for all my banking going forward, including AU sales. I could make up the ~$200/yr in AU sales pretty easily, but wondering if I'm just being paranoid and throwing money away.

I bought a tradeline once. (I think everyone who wants to sell tradelines should buy at least one.)

I didn't get any info about the cardholder. Just info about the card: open date, current balance, payment history.

Interesting. So it didn't show up as an address on your credit report?

[solon]

Is anyone else worried about having their home address on a bunch of random people's credit reports?

I'm planning on moving in the next year or so, and wondering if I should pay for a UPS Store box or travelling mailbox service for all my banking going forward, including AU sales. I could make up the ~$200/yr in AU sales pretty easily, but wondering if I'm just being paranoid and throwing money away.

I bought a tradeline once. (I think everyone who wants to sell tradelines should buy at least one.)

I didn't get any info about the cardholder. Just info about the card: open date, current balance, payment history.

Interesting. So it didn't show up as an address on your credit report?

I never thought to look in the address section of the credit report. But I did just now, and sure enough, there is a strange address in there I don't recognize.

Dang it! Now I guess I'll have to get a private PO box.

[solon]

Is anyone else worried about having their home address on a bunch of random people's credit reports?

I'm planning on moving in the next year or so, and wondering if I should pay for a UPS Store box or travelling mailbox service for all my banking going forward, including AU sales. I could make up the ~$200/yr in AU sales pretty easily, but wondering if I'm just being paranoid and throwing money away.

I bought a tradeline once. (I think everyone who wants to sell tradelines should buy at least one.)

I didn't get any info about the cardholder. Just info about the card: open date, current balance, payment history.

Interesting. So it didn't show up as an address on your credit report?

I never thought to look in the address section of the credit report. But I did just now, and sure enough, there is a strange address in there I don't recognize.

Dang it! Now I guess I'll have to get a private PO box.

Another interesting thing: I googled that address, and got the website of a small business. There is an About page with the names of the owner and employees. I bet if I called and talked to the owner, I'd find out it's someone from this thread.

[arebelspy]

Yes, one of the minor downsides of this is your address may show up on their credit report, meaning:

1) You may get junk mail for former AUs at some point. Some people have reported this, though it doesn't seem super common. I haven't had it happen, because I use a virtual mailbox for all my mail, and they only process/deliver mail addressed to me or my wife, and reject anything addressed to other names, so I never even see that if it is sent to me. The remedy, if you don't want to get a separate box for AU sales, is to just throw out the junk mail if you get it.

2) You may get phone calls from creditors for that person, if the creditor runs their credit report, sees your address, googles it, and can find your phone number. Again, it's happened to a number of people, but doesn't seem super common. Again, I haven't had it happen to me because my number is not super googleable, but the remedy, if it happens to you, is to ask them to remove your number and/or block their number.

Annoyances, yes. How big or small probably depends on your tolerance for such things, how frequently they happen, and how much you got paid to put up with it.

[katsiki]

I use a PO Box but it is more for my own convenience for postal mail in general.  It does help in this situation as well.

[monarda]

Question about AMEX tradelines through any company. They didn't ask for the DOB or SSN when calling to add, but they did ask when the card came in the mail- they wanted the DOB and SSN to activate the card. So it seems AMEX does things in a different order.  Anyone else have a similar experience? I won't know for a little while if/when it will post- but I can report back.

[arebelspy]

Amex doesn't work the same way, so TL companies don't use them.

They report the date you added the AU as the opening date for the card for the AU, so it doesn't help their length of credit history (and probably hurts it), though it does help the amount of credit open.  But it basically shows as if it's a brand new opened card, even if you've had it for a decade+.

[ducky19]

My niece's husband needed some help with his credit score for a car loan, so I added him to several of my cards - three of which were AmEx. I had her send me an update each time his credit score updated with a new account. All told, his score went from a 550 to a 720! Several of the larger boosts he got were when an AmEx card posted. While arebelspy is correct that they show as being a new account and you don't get the age benefit, it seems that the available credit portion made up for that. Total available credit from AmEx from the cards that I added him to was ~$50,000 total from three cards. Obviously, other factors on their credit (bankruptcy, foreclosures, etc.) may keep it from having as significant of an impact as it did in his case, but AmEx cards can help. Something to keep in mind if you have someone close to you who needs a boost that you don't want to add to a card being used for tradelines.

[monarda]

Something to keep in mind if you have someone close to you who needs a boost that you don't want to add to a card being used for tradelines.

This is my situation- family member transaction. I'll report back before/after credit scores. I think credit utilization is a bigger issue than age, but we'll see how it plays out.

[robartsd]

My niece's husband needed some help with his credit score for a car loan, so I added him to several of my cards - three of which were AmEx. I had her send me an update each time his credit score updated with a new account. All told, his score went from a 550 to a 720! Several of the larger boosts he got were when an AmEx card posted. While arebelspy is correct that they show as being a new account and you don't get the age benefit, it seems that the available credit portion made up for that. Total available credit from AmEx from the cards that I added him to was ~$50,000 total from three cards. Obviously, other factors on their credit (bankruptcy, foreclosures, etc.) may keep it from having as significant of an impact as it did in his case, but AmEx cards can help. Something to keep in mind if you have someone close to you who needs a boost that you don't want to add to a card being used for tradelines.

Yes, the benefit from a new high-limit/low utilization card being added to your report would depend on the type of credit history you have; an aged card with similar limit and utilization would always be better though. I don't know why the industry doesn't all work more like Amex - I think it would make credit scores more reliable.

[SilverAg47]

So I signed up for the New Company on Aug 3 and just got my first sale today!  I had some trouble adding the AU online on Discover's site and reluctantly ended up calling in to add the person.  It was very easy and I was not asked any weird questions.  Has anyone else had trouble with the Discover site resetting and kicking you back to the original screen when trying to add an AU? 

I'll also add that when I went through all my cards to try and raise my CL's, I found out that Discover does let you request an increase online every 30 days (I think I read earlier in the thread people saying it was 2-3 months)

[arebelspy]

I've had issues with Discover's website. I ended up using the Edge browser, and it works. Maybe a conflict with one of my extensions? IDK.

[SilverAg47]

I've had issues with Discover's website. I ended up using the Edge browser, and it works. Maybe a conflict with one of my extensions? IDK.

Yeah, I was on Chrome, so maybe I'll have to try Edge next time and see how that goes.

Another question I have is about the New Company's portal.  When I go to the Document Center, I see 3 people listed.  I have only made 1 sale, so why would there be documents listed for these 2 other random people?

[Mesmoiselle]

A data point I've noticed with the new company is that on one of my cards, I mostly get AU requests from people who live within like 20 miles of me. I live in a major city with a significant immigrant population, I wonder if it is just coincidence, or, if they're keeping it to locals to make it seem like it's people I might reasonably know. 9 times out of 10, AUs on that card have been from addresses I might actually have driven past on my way to work.

You should stop on your way in, get out of the car and yell at the building "YOU'RE WELCOME!".