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

[MasterStache]

Well, today Chase sent the dreaded letter about account closure and closed all my accounts.

Reasons given:
"Too many requests for credit or reviews of credit
Account not used as intended"

This is a bummer because a week ago I opened an INK business card after reading they were approving even if over 5/24. It was approved and I received the card. And I've been waiting to go under 5/24 in April to open some new personal cards.

I think it was more the sign up bonuses than number of AUs. This card only had 10 AUs in 5 years and 5 of those were in 2018. It was a good run of credit card, bank account and brokerage sign up bonuses. Guess I'll try again in a couple years.

Yikes! That sucks. I dare not risk my Chase relationship. Those UR points have saved us tens of thousands on travel.

[MoneyTree]

I had my chase cards shut down recently. I applied for a sapphire preferred about a week later and was approved. I did not have a sapphire preferred beforehand.

[almost]

I've been selling tradelines and churning bank accounts and credit cards for several years and have recently run into an issue with my credit report. 

I've been trying to open bank accounts over the past year and have been repeatedly denied because I was getting the verification questions wrong.  Questions like where family members have lived, banks I've opened mortgages at, etc.  I've noticed lots of questions about a person who has the same last name as me, but is not in my family.  Let's say his name is Brad Adams and my last name is Adams.  I've been scratching my head for months.  Who the hell is Brad Adams?

Well, I finally figured it out.  I sold a tradeline to Brad Adams on a capital one card almost 3 years ago.  I removed him shortly after, but it seems like the AU history and shared last name is enough to link our credit reports forever...   

Anyone else run into this?  Any suggestions on how to fix it?  It's more of an annoyance than anything.  I'll probably have to roll the dice and cross my fingers every time I open a new account online and hope they don't ask me any questions about Brad Adams.

[secondcor521]

I've been selling tradelines and churning bank accounts and credit cards for several years and have recently run into an issue with my credit report. 

I've been trying to open bank accounts over the past year and have been repeatedly denied because I was getting the verification questions wrong.  Questions like where family members have lived, banks I've opened mortgages at, etc.  I've noticed lots of questions about a person who has the same last name as me, but is not in my family.  Let's say his name is Brad Adams and my last name is Adams.  I've been scratching my head for months.  Who the hell is Brad Adams?

Well, I finally figured it out.  I sold a tradeline to Brad Adams on a capital one card almost 3 years ago.  I removed him shortly after, but it seems like the AU history and shared last name is enough to link our credit reports forever...   

Anyone else run into this?  Any suggestions on how to fix it?  It's more of an annoyance than anything.  I'll probably have to roll the dice and cross my fingers every time I open a new account online and hope they don't ask me any questions about Brad Adams.

My father's and my credit report were similarly intertwined for ages because of same last name and same address.

Two suggestions:

1.  If possible, when adding AUs with your same last name, try to provide the AU physical address if the CC company will take it.  Won't help you with Brad, but will maybe help others and may help you in the future.

2.  Contact the credit bureaus, get a copy of your credit reports, and dispute anything on yours that is associated with Brad - his address, his phone, his former employers, etc.

[jeromedawg]

Hi all - was curious with Citi cards (or any card for that matter that isn't Barclays): is "seasoning" new cards also recommended or needed regardless of card issuer?

[secondcor521]

Hi all - was curious with Citi cards (or any card for that matter that isn't Barclays): is "seasoning" new cards also recommended or needed regardless of card issuer?

By "seasoning" I assume you mean have the card but just wait to list it for sale with a TL company.  That's how I'm using it in the rest of this post.

Reasons to season:

1.  TL companies will have criteria for what they even will agree to list for sale.  The one I use requires at least six months I think.  So you need to season for at least that long.

2.  Personally I don't find it worth the hassle and risk to add and remove AUs for less than $X.  So I will look at my seasoning cards and if the commission schedule for that issuer and CL is below $X, I will wait to list it.

3.  Similar to #2, Barclays cards are only good for X slots lifetime, so people may want to not waste any of those X slots on low value AU sales.

4.  The other reason to wait to season is if you think for whatever reason that you can get the CL increased to the next commission level while you're seasoning.  Might be worth it to wait.

HTH.

[jnw]

Tradeline income would be considered Schedule C earned income right?

[secondcor521]

Tradeline income would be considered Schedule C earned income right?

That's what I do.  Depending on facts and circumstances, it might also be Other Income, reported on Schedule 1 line 8z.

[jnw]

Seriously considering doing this.  I have a Chase and Bank of America card I could trade line.  I need to try and find a tradeline company who could make use of my Synchony Bank Paypal Mastercard as well as my credit union VISA card.. both  have 10+ years of history.

I am going to go through all 100+ pages of these messages, since this seems so interesting.

[ducky19]

Please edit your post to remove the name of the company you're referring to - we don't want these things showing up on Google searches.

[jnw]

Please edit your post to remove the name of the company you're referring to - we don't want these things showing up on Google searches.

Done.

[jnw]

Closing a card is not going to change your average age of account until said card drops off your report 10 years after it is closed.

I recently closed a few cards that were less than 3 years old, and according to Credit Karma the following month, it increased my average age from 3.9 years to 6.4 years.  So it appears to affect it immediately.   

[BC_Goldman]

I finally got another order email (new company). I logged into the portal for the info and there's no SSN or documents. I emailed them and they said to go ahead and add without SSN. I was going to do it, but then started wondering if they didn't actually do the due diligence since there's no supporting documentation. Just name/address/birthday.

[tj]

Closing a card is not going to change your average age of account until said card drops off your report 10 years after it is closed.

I recently closed a few cards that were less than 3 years old, and according to Credit Karma the following month, it increased my average age from 3.9 years to 6.4 years.  So it appears to affect it immediately.

Order your actual reports from annualcreditreport.com

[jnw]

Order your actual reports from annualcreditreport.com

Okay I just did, it shows the same average credit age as credit karma.  Average age a couple months ago was just under 4 years with credit karma.  Closed a few accounts and now it's around 6.5 years on credit karma.  Shows 6.5 years on the credit report I just got from annualcreditreport.com.

[tj]

Order your actual reports from annualcreditreport.com

Okay I just did, it shows the same average credit age as credit karma.  Average age a couple months ago was just under 4 years with credit karma.  Closed a few accounts and now it's around 6.5 years on credit karma.  Shows 6.5 years on the credit report I just got from annualcreditreport.com.

Interesting. I guess that's an average age of open accounts. Maybe it takes 10 years for the closed account to drop off your report details. And maybe the closed accounts still effect the score. IDK.

[frogstomp81]

I have a couple USAA cards with high credit limits and a couple Chase cards with high limits. They are up to 14 years old. I am having trouble increasing the credit limit on several of my other cards, and I believe this may be due to the USAA/Chase cards. Does anyone have an opinion as to if I should close the USAA/Chase cards to hopefully be able to increase the limits on my other cards? Or would it be better to keep the cards and request credit limit decreases on them> I haven't been selling spots on the USAA cards, as I've found USAA is a hassle to deal with on the phone. I've also not been selling spots on the Chase cards as I was under the impression that Chase shuts down your cards frequently.

[jnw]

Here's something I didn't know about.  Clever.  You can call the creditor and ask for a retention offer to keep a card open.  Useful I guess for tradeline sellers since they keep the cards for so long.   

Here's a bookmarked link on youtube where this guy talks about it.
https://youtu.be/BKdEodJN5pA?t=143

[almost]

I have a couple USAA cards with high credit limits and a couple Chase cards with high limits. They are up to 14 years old. I am having trouble increasing the credit limit on several of my other cards, and I believe this may be due to the USAA/Chase cards. Does anyone have an opinion as to if I should close the USAA/Chase cards to hopefully be able to increase the limits on my other cards? Or would it be better to keep the cards and request credit limit decreases on them> I haven't been selling spots on the USAA cards, as I've found USAA is a hassle to deal with on the phone. I've also not been selling spots on the Chase cards as I was under the impression that Chase shuts down your cards frequently.

I have an old USAA card with a high value, but I have stopped listing it for tradelines.  It is too much work, the USAA process is uncomfortable, and my posting success has been about 50%.

I have also had trouble getting credit limit increases.  I did experiment with shifting my spending to a particular card for a quarter, and then requesting a credit limit increase after 3 months.  I was able to get a few, $1,000-$3,000 increases this way.  But then capital one did a review of my account a while later and dropped my credit limit by $10,000.  So the whole process seems fickle and pointless to me now.

[jnw]

I just setup a repeating calendar event to remind me every 6 months to call all my creditors to ask for a credit line increase.  Is this a good idea?   Can someone with only a $39K net income get credit limits of like $20-25k?   My largest credit limit is $12k with credit union -- too bad that card is desirable to tradeline companies, it has a 10 year history.

EDIT: I just called my credit union and the card services they use is FIS Global which is run by Fidelity.  I heard Fidelity uses Elan?  So is it possible my credit union credit card would be serviced by Elan and I could use for selling tradelines?  Btw, they told me they are switching from FIS to CO-OP for credit card servicing company in the near future.. I know nothing about them.

[almost]

Capital One has made some changes to their authorized user system.  Now, to add an AU with their SSN you need to give them online access.  With online access the AU can book travel and dining, and do other things.  I'm not sure if they can get a virtual card. 

I did some testing with the travel and dining.  I have a $0 awards balance but I am still able to book travel and dining online through their portal and just have it charged to my card.  I assume the AU would be able to do the same.

I need to list the AU's phone number when adding them, but could use one of my email addresses.  I could also enable all the account alerts so I would get notified if an email or phone number in my profile changed.  I'm a little concerned that an AU could call in, change their online access credentials over the phone, and then be able to spend money before I was able to log in and change things back.  They would have every data point for account verification except the email address.  I have called into banks in the past and updated my profile details over the phone.  I'm not sure this would be any different.

What do you all think of the risk level? Negligible or serious?  Thanks in advance.

[tj]

I just setup a repeating calendar event to remind me every 6 months to call all my creditors to ask for a credit line increase.  Is this a good idea?   Can someone with only a $39K net income get credit limits of like $20-25k?   My largest credit limit is $12k with credit union -- too bad that card is desirable to tradeline companies, it has a 10 year history.

EDIT: I just called my credit union and the card services they use is FIS Global which is run by Fidelity.  I heard Fidelity uses Elan?  So is it possible my credit union credit card would be serviced by Elan and I could use for selling tradelines?  Btw, they told me they are switching from FIS to CO-OP for credit card servicing company in the near future.. I know nothing about them.

At some point you are going to cap your limits for your income. I wouldn't waste hard inquires on CLI's when you could get new account sign up bonuses. Also, CLI's on existing product may make it harder to get approved for new cards if you have too much credit for your income.

[jnw]

At some point you are going to cap your limits for your income. I wouldn't waste hard inquires on CLI's when you could get new account sign up bonuses. Also, CLI's on existing product may make it harder to get approved for new cards if you have too much credit for your income.

Okay thanks.  All the credit limit increases I've asked for recently all did soft inquiries. I won't bother with those that do hard inquiries.  I didn't realize that higher credit lines on other cards make it harder to get approved for new cards, I thought they just went by the score.  Bummer.

[jnw]

Now focusing on getting credit cards with banks which are useful for piggybacking; it turns out I only have two relevant cards currently: Chase and BofA -- and I am afraid to use Chase because of the churn-ability of the checking account etc. (don't want a lifetime ban).

I got the Discover It Cashback card the other day -- my first discover card. I really like the rotating 5% categories, the sign up bonus and the double cashback the first year.  A real financial hacker's card: buying sams & walmart giftcards three out of the four quarters.

So here's my question:
Looking into Barclay's now.. and I am thinking the AARP Barclay's card since it has $100 cash sign up bonus as well as $0 annual fee; I don't rarely ever travel and I want to have the card for many years to "season" it for piggy backing -- not paying an annual feel all that time sounds appealing.  What do you think?  Is there a better Barclay's card for my purpose?  I could go with the Barclays AAdvantage card which gives like 60K miles which I guess could perhaps be redeemed for cash as well? Although I am not sure how much.  But that card has a $95 annual fee.

EDIT: I do have about $1000 in medical expenses each year and the AARP card has 2% back on medical expenses.  So I could use this card for those expenses and get better than the 1.5% cashback card I normally use for medical expenses.  So like $5 more per year.  Also using the card for this purpose would keep some activity on the card for higher likelihood of a credit limit increase.

EDIT #2: Hrm, I just watched a youtube video that says Barclays will downgrade cards for you if you want to avoid an annual fee.  So say I start with AAdvantage, and get 60K bonus miles, pay the $95 annual fee.  Just before the year is up I could then downgrade it to AARP Barclay's card.. hopefully with no loss of credit age nor credit limit.

[secondcor521]

^ @JenniferW

I've never seen any Chase data point showing a lifetime ban for something as modestly against TOS as piggybacking.  If you have, please share.  Chase will close down multiple accounts and maybe even checking/savings, but multiple product closures is not the same thing as a permanent ban.

I don't have any particular opinion on which Barclays card to get.  For me, I weight the piggybacking income more heavily than the features of any particular card.  Sure, if I happen to find a card that has a nice sign up bonus, I'll do that.  But otherwise I don't really care much.

Most of the cards I end up getting these days are almost all of the "$95/$99 fee waived for the first year" variety.  I get them, do the signup bonus (the AA 60K one is one I've done twice I think), downgrade at a year,  then piggyback on them later.  Sometimes I'll do the "fancy $450 for lots of travel perks" ones, because they can be the most lucrative.  But I've been doing this (and other CC games) for a long time and have a large stable of cards already, so I think it's harder for me to get additional cards/credit.

To answer the question implied in your last paragraph, yes, you keep the credit limit and card history when downgrading.  You usually keep the card number too.  They will send you a new physical card and probably all the new account paperwork, but as far as piggybacking goes it works just the way you would hope it would.

As an aside, you should be able to get the AA $60K offer without having to pay the $95 the first year.  Check the language of the offer again, or poke around the web to find a better offer.  It's quite common for issuers to offer the same card with different bonuses and annual fees at the same time - the terms you're offered will depend on which link or affiliate you start from.

[jnw]

Thanks for all the tips y'all.  I do have a Citi Custom Cash cards but only about a year of history; I'll mature that one over a few years and get credit limit increased -- I'd really hate to lose it though because I get 5% cash back at Aldi and the awesome discount grocer I go to.

I didn't realize Amex cards were useful for selling tradelines.  Does the old/new tradeline company use them?

I have a question about Barclays AAdvantage card:  when you downgrade the card to another without an annual fee, do you lose the AAdvantage American Airlines miles?  Would be nice to hold onto them and use over like 2 or 3 years. My BF could use to visit his mom.  Barclays is offering me 50k miles and a waived annual fee for the first year.  I'm tempted to apply for the Barclays AAdvantage card but I just applied and was approved for the Discover IT Cashback card just a few days ago.  I have 6 hard inquiries on my Transunion report and 4 on Equifax.

EDIT: I'll have only 3 hard inquiries on TransUnion in Mid June -- three will drop off by then.  Perhaps I'll apply for the Barclays card then.  Then my BF can visit his mom in say July and then May of the following year -- can get 2 round trips w/ the 50k miles; after that then downgrade the card to avoid the annual fee.

[secondcor521]

^ @JenniferW

You have to decide what your risk tolerance is.  The general rule I follow is to segregate the cards I use for my regular use from the cards I use for piggybacking.  But you don't strictly have to follow that guideline, and there can be situations where it makes sense.

Losing cards happens, but it's not particularly common in my experience.  People post about it on this thread because it's newsworthy, but people don't post when their cards don't get shut down.  Also, I haven't seen many data points, but it does seem that at least some of the time you can get another card with the same issuer shortly afterward.

It boils down to risk / reward really.

...

I think New Company stopped using AMEX a bit ago.  AMEX cards generally weren't posting very consistently IIRC, which is just bad for everyone.  I don't know about Old Company's current rules.

...

To answer your question, when you downgrade, you don't lose any AA miles that you've already earned.  Typically when downgrading, the benefits like mileage accrual or cash back on the no fee card isn't as good as the $95 or $99 a year version; I don't know offhand if that is true specifically for the Barclays AA card but it's a general pattern I've seen.

...

I don't usually worry too much about inquiries.  For me they only drop my score by a few points each, and I've gotten cards approved with more inquiries on my report than you have now.  But it does sort of depend on your overall credit history, and so your experience will probably be different.

One thing that is probably more important is to know what each issuer's rules and limitations are.  For example Chase has a famous 5/24 rule, and other issuers have other limitations on how many cards you can apply for within certain timeframes.  There are lots of websites out there that discuss this sort of stuff; personally I like Doctor of Credit.

[jnw]

Thanks for all that. Yeah I knew about the 5/24 rule but evidently forgot about it recently (within the past 8 months) and had two unnecessary hard inquiries.  If I just looked at my log in my spreadsheet (I track it all) I could of clearly seen I had more than 5 cards in 24 months.   I know Barclays is 6/24.  Isn't Capital One the same as Chase: 5/24? 

I think it perhaps makes sense to try and get multiple Barclays cards if possible since they don't usually have issues with piggybacking I hear.   But I've heard getting more than one Barclays card is hard to do because they are picky, they want to see a lot of activity on the first barclay's card.   How many Barclay's cards do you have?

[secondcor521]

Thanks for all that. Yeah I knew about the 5/24 rule but evidently forgot about it recently (within the past 8 months) and had two unnecessary hard inquiries.  If I just looked at my log in my spreadsheet (I track it all) I could of clearly seen I had more than 5 cards in 24 months.   I know Barclays is 6/24.  Isn't Capital One the same as Chase: 5/24? 

I think it perhaps makes sense to try and get multiple Barclays cards if possible since they don't usually have issues with piggybacking I hear.   But I've heard getting more than one Barclays card is hard to do because they are picky, they want to see a lot of activity on the first barclay's card.   How many Barclay's cards do you have?

I don't recall offhand.  I'm slowing down on this sort of stuff for various reasons.  I'd just refer you to Doctor of Credit - I think they have a page for each issuer, and Capital One would be one of them.  Whatever rule they have, it's probably there.  Although DOC sometimes is a bit out of date.  You can also try reddit; it tends to be up to date, although there's also a high noise-to-signal ratio.

I just have one Barclays currently.  But it's hit it's lifetime AU max, so I'm hoping to get a new replacement Barclays in a few months.  If/when I do, I'll move all the CL from the old to the new and close the old.  It's not worth anything to me otherwise.

[jnw]

I just have one Barclays currently.  But it's hit it's lifetime AU max, so I'm hoping to get a new replacement Barclays in a few months.  If/when I do, I'll move all the CL from the old to the new and close the old.  It's not worth anything to me otherwise.

It's amazing how you can max it and then just downgrade or transfer the credit age/history/limit over to the new barclays card with room for 35 more auths :)

[ducky19]

I currently have 3 Barclay cards. That is the most I have had, so not sure if they allow more than that or not. What is important to them is the total amount of credit they offer you. I have had to call before because of an initial decline on an application and have them move some of my available credit from another card to the new one in order for them to approve it. I'm currently looking to add another Barclay, so I will probably have some additional data points to report back in the next couple of weeks.

[EliteZags]

for those hesitant to list cards they don't want to lose due to risk of closure, consider that nearly all closures are due to a high amount of tradelines being processed as long as you're following the guidelines, meaning the closure will be worth it to you

I had a long history/high limit Chase Freedom closed a year ago (but still have Chase checking acct) though not til after well over a dozen sales netting >$3K over a year or 2 with minimal effort, now think how much I would have needed to use that card for cash back/promos etc over how long to be able to exceed that $3K earned, vs just redirecting to another card

[therethere]

for those hesitant to list cards they don't want to lose due to risk of closure, consider that nearly all closures are due to a high amount of tradelines being processed as long as you're following the guidelines, meaning the closure will be worth it to you

I had a long history/high limit Chase Freedom closed a year ago (but still have Chase checking acct) though not til after well over a dozen sales netting >$3K over a year or 2 with minimal effort, now think how much I would have needed to use that card for cash back/promos etc over how long to be able to exceed that $3K earned, vs just redirecting to another card

I thought Chase typically closes all your credit card accounts though? I make nearly 2-3k/year off Chase via spending promos. So that wouldn't be worth it to me.

[tj]

for those hesitant to list cards they don't want to lose due to risk of closure, consider that nearly all closures are due to a high amount of tradelines being processed as long as you're following the guidelines, meaning the closure will be worth it to you

I had a long history/high limit Chase Freedom closed a year ago (but still have Chase checking acct) though not til after well over a dozen sales netting >$3K over a year or 2 with minimal effort, now think how much I would have needed to use that card for cash back/promos etc over how long to be able to exceed that $3K earned, vs just redirecting to another card

I thought Chase typically closes all your credit card accounts though? I make nearly 2-3k/year off Chase via spending promos. So that wouldn't be worth it to me.

How are you getting spending promos that generous?

[therethere]

for those hesitant to list cards they don't want to lose due to risk of closure, consider that nearly all closures are due to a high amount of tradelines being processed as long as you're following the guidelines, meaning the closure will be worth it to you

I had a long history/high limit Chase Freedom closed a year ago (but still have Chase checking acct) though not til after well over a dozen sales netting >$3K over a year or 2 with minimal effort, now think how much I would have needed to use that card for cash back/promos etc over how long to be able to exceed that $3K earned, vs just redirecting to another card

I thought Chase typically closes all your credit card accounts though? I make nearly 2-3k/year off Chase via spending promos. So that wouldn't be worth it to me.

How are you getting spending promos that generous?

2-player mode. Referral + Business card bonus transferred to my Sapphire Reserve for the 1.25-1.5x redemption adder. This year they were running a $900 bonus + $200 referral. Adds up to 1375/card.

[cpmigge]

Anybody have issues with receiving payment from the new company? I always have to send an email requesting payment and usually just ask every few months. I let it go longer than usual last year and asked him to send payment in December. Sent a reminder in January as I hadn’t received a response. Yesterday I sent a third request and copied Erica and in this time.

While on the subject, I’ve only ever received a 1099 the first year is started doing this. Did not receive one in 2020 or 2021 and I haven’t seen one for 2022 either.

[secondcor521]

Anybody have issues with receiving payment from the old company? I always have to send an email requesting payment and usually just ask every few months. I let it go longer than usual last year and asked him to send payment in December. Sent a reminder in January as I hadn’t received a response. Yesterday I sent a third request and copied Erica and in this time.

Yes.  It has been mentioned on this (very long) thread a number of times.  Often involving @arebelspy helps.  I don't think you or he should have to go through that though; I think they should just pay on time without hassles.

While on the subject, I’ve only ever received a 1099 the first year is started doing this. Did not receive one in 2020 or 2021 and I haven’t seen one for 2022 either.

No experience with that, but honestly not surprising given the payment issues.

Legally they're supposed to provide you a 1099 by a certain day in the spring each year.

[Padonak]

Anybody have issues with receiving payment from the old company? I always have to send an email requesting payment and usually just ask every few months. I let it go longer than usual last year and asked him to send payment in December. Sent a reminder in January as I hadn’t received a response. Yesterday I sent a third request and copied Erica and in this time.

While on the subject, I’ve only ever received a 1099 the first year is started doing this. Did not receive one in 2020 or 2021 and I haven’t seen one for 2022 either.

Do you mean the NEW company? Because i've been working with the old one for a few years and never had any issues with payments.

[norseman1776]

Has cliff paid anyone since January?  I've emailed multiple times and haven't heard anything.  Normally it only takes one maybe two emails to receive payment.  I haven't been paid for my July thru Oct adds. 

[beekayworld]

Anybody have issues with receiving payment from the old company? I always have to send an email requesting payment and usually just ask every few months. I let it go longer than usual last year and asked him to send payment in December. Sent a reminder in January as I hadn’t received a response. Yesterday I sent a third request and copied Erica and in this time.

You mean the NEW company, not the old (since you mentioned Erica). Erica is with the new company (as is Cliff). Also the new company is notorious for late/missing payments. The old company works like clockwork.

While on the subject, I’ve only ever received a 1099 the first year is started doing this. Did not receive one in 2020 or 2021 and I haven’t seen one for 2022 either.

They don't send a 1099-NEC if you earn under $600.

[cpmigge]

Sorry, I did mean the new company, edited the original post. I just pulled everything up and checked what is still outstanding. Waiting on $1,775 from 2022 and so far have $550 from January 2023.

Regarding the 1099-NEC, I’ve had 1k - 1.5k per year so I definitely should have received one.

I am surprised I haven’t heard back from Erica on Tuesday’s email. She’s generally been very responsive.

[jnw]

I just have one Barclays currently.  But it's hit it's lifetime AU max, so I'm hoping to get a new replacement Barclays in a few months.  If/when I do, I'll move all the CL from the old to the new and close the old.  It's not worth anything to me otherwise.

Just wondering if you also sell tradelines with any Discover cards?  How are they compared to Barclays with respect to reporting and not closing out account due to too many auths?  Do they close just a single cards or all your cards with them like Chase?

I plan on getting Barclays card next.  After Discover and Barclay's which would be the next best card to get for selling tradelines?   I alread have Chase, BofA and Citi cards, so want something other than those next. 

[secondcor521]

I just have one Barclays currently.  But it's hit it's lifetime AU max, so I'm hoping to get a new replacement Barclays in a few months.  If/when I do, I'll move all the CL from the old to the new and close the old.  It's not worth anything to me otherwise.

Just wondering if you also sell tradelines with any Discover cards?  How are they compared to Barclays with respect to reporting and not closing out account due to too many auths?  Do they close just a single cards or all your cards with them like Chase?

I plan on getting Barclays card next.  After Discover and Barclay's which would be the next best card to get for selling tradelines?   I alread have Chase, BofA and Citi cards, so want something other than those next.

Not yet.  I have one Discover card which is currently seasoning for another 6 months or so before I enroll it.

"Best" is subjective; it depends on what's important to you.  The issuers vary in their shutdown risk, commissions, slot duration, number of slots, ease of getting large lines, ease of adding/removing, and maybe other factors I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Also, people will have different experiences.  US Bank is considered low shutdown risk, but they've shutdown two of my cards.  Some people here have posted about problems with issuers that I've personally never had.  As a broad rule of thumb, my experience is that if I follow all of the guidelines by the TL companies I've worked with, then over 95% of AU slots add, remove, and pay just fine.

[MoseyingAlong]

Just wondering if you also sell tradelines with any Discover cards?  How are they compared to Barclays with respect to reporting and not closing out account due to too many auths?  Do they close just a single cards or all your cards with them like Chase?

.....

I've been using a Discover card since mid-2018. 27 AUs so far. Generally it's good, easy to add and remove online.

The weird thing is that every once in a while, Discover will say I have to wait a few months to add another AU. I was able to add one by calling in even with that warning. And the timing seems flexible. A couple months ago it said I had to wait until late April to add another AU. But that banner disappeared and I was able to add 2 in the last month. It just seems weird.

[jnw]

Have y'all seen this guy's video on youtube?  What do you think about what he is saying? He claims buying tradelines is considered fraudulent.  Mortgage fraud etc.  He also says it is no longer effective because lenders ignore the auth tradelines when underwriting.   I watched 75% of the video before stopping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z-fSfzRppQ



 

[Michael in ABQ]

Have y'all seen this guy's video on youtube?  What do you think about what he is saying? He claims buying tradelines is considered fraudulent.  Mortgage fraud etc.  He also says it is no longer effective because lenders ignore the auth tradelines when underwriting.   I watched 75% of the video before stopping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z-fSfzRppQ

Meh. As long as tradeline companies are willing to pay me $150-200 to spend 5 minutes adding and removing an AU, I'll take advantage of it.

It's against the Terms of Service for the credit card companies - but it's not fraud. We're talking about private companies collecting our financial information and then selling it to other private companies. I don't mind getting in the middle of that to extract a few bucks (and potentially mess with their dataset) since their entire business model relies on selling my information that they can collect whether I like it or not.

[MoMoney88]

re: Discover
I have had the same issue as MoseyingAlong has had... two times, and also have been able to add over the phone.

The other weird thing with Discover is it has stopped reporting to the Credit Bureaus two times also.  The first time was over a year ago, and it took 3-4 phone calls before finally someone at Discover knew what to do. This "supervisor" apparently did some research for me and called me back and said my "Report to credit bureaus" flag was turned off. So it took a few weeks before it started reporting again.

Then, this year I noticed again it stopped reporting to the credit agencies. I checked my Credit Karma and it showed Discover's "Date Reported" was June 6, 2022.  I'm still working to get it reporting again. I've called them a few times, and then they sent me a form via snail mail to fill out and return.  I mailed it back and waited a couple of weeks then called them back. They told me yes we received your form and are removing your "dispute" so you should see reporting again within in 60 days.  Ugh!

[MoMoney88]

Another thing with Discover, it's been a pain to get my credit limit increased.  I've gotten a couple of other cards in the $30k - $35k range without much effort.
But with Discover, they keep declining my CL increase due to "not enough purchases/balance" on my Discover, or something like that.
I'm only up to $11,500, and the last increase was because I finally decided to call and talk to someone live.

[jnw]

Another thing with Discover, it's been a pain to get my credit limit increased.  I've gotten a couple of other cards in the $30k - $35k range without much effort.
But with Discover, they keep declining my CL increase due to "not enough purchases/balance" on my Discover, or something like that.
I'm only up to $11,500, and the last increase was because I finally decided to call and talk to someone live.

They started me with an $8,000 credit limit, just got the card today.  Currently $12k is my highest credit limit of all my cards -- my net income is like $39k.   I plan on filling it all the way up since it is 0% APR for 15 months on purchases.   And put the money I would of used to pay it off each month into federal money market instead currently earning 4.75%.   I think when I get it above $7000 I'll try and have them increase it.  I'll keep pushing it up higher and higher and continue to ask for CLI's.  Then a week or two before the promotion ends, I'll withdraw all the principle from the money market and pay off the balance in full.

Then I'll probably do this tactic in the future with other cards, always keeping a 0% APR card on hand if possible for an emergency float if needed.  So it will do two things for me: increase credit limit and also get me lots of interest in money market borrowing the creditors money for free.

[uneven_cyclist]

Have folks been able to post AUs/sell tradelines from outside the US?  I'm considering using tradelines as a potential strategy to be able to retire abroad...would this be workable?  I remember reading somewhere--maybe the company/broker?--that it's best to not add AUs from outside the US, but I wanted to ask about it here in case folks have any thoughts/experience.  Thanks!