These days it’s important to maintain your wits about you regarding who you do business with. At this point we are all (hopefully) aware that if a Nigerian Prince wants to give you a million dollars but needs $1,000 to secure a boat ride for the diamonds or cash or whatever, we know that’s no good. Scams take on many forms, nickel and dime stuff to bigger and perhaps even becoming famous for all time–see Victor Lustig, the Austrian-Hungarian who “sold” the Eiffel tower. If you’re looking into adding tradelines, you won’t be taking part in anything so grand, but you could still lose thousands of dollars if you aren’t careful. You always want to perform your due diligence when purchasing revolving tradelines, and this is the only kind you should be buying, as primary tradelines are in fact financial fraud. So, that brings us to the main question.
Are Tradelines Illegal?
Authorized User tradelines are not illegal. Adding tradelines in the primary position that do not belong to you, like auto or mortgage, are illegal. That is financial fraud. You cannot add debt onto a report and say it belongs to you when it doesn’t. But adding AU’s, or piggyback tradelines is not illegal, and in fact is the only legal way to add data onto your report that doesn’t belong to you.
We get calls all day every day asking for primary tradelines. At Boost Credit 101 we only sell AU aged tradelines, because we don’t want a government financial investigatory agent knocking on our door and hauling us off in handcuffs. The best advice we can give as far as primary lines go, don’t get into that transaction, as you are doing business with someone engaged in an illegal activity, which puts the probability of tradeline scams at higher than normal levels. If you want to buy a tradeline account, stick with the AU variety. So where exactly do you get them?
Are There Tradeline Stores?
The nice thing about being a consumer in the most whiz-bang gung-ho capitalist society to ever exist is that we have a lot of variety. Need some clothes? There are a hundred stores in a two mile radius (at least if you are in a city). Need a car? There are dealerships on several corners catering to every need you can think of, from the purely utilitarian, to the posh and gaudy (e.g. if you purchase a Maserati from Sil Terhar in Denver, they deliver each on a trailer; only you can put miles on it). The problem with tradelines however, is that there are no brick and mortar institutions, only online stores, and online stores can be a bit sketchy, [cough] craigslist. If you’re thinking, “I need to buy tradeline, so I can get house”, you won’t be able to window shop these products. But there is some good news: there are more than a few reputable institutions, and that should be your number one priority, finding an honorable tradeline company.
So how do you find them? Well, it’s fairly simple, just google “tradeline Boston”, or wherever it is that you live. Good tradeline companies can service your needs from anywhere in the U.S., and more often than not, will strictly be an online entity.
How Do You Properly Vet Reputable Tradeline Companies?
Any company that has the ability to check reviews is usually a legitimate company. Think about it. Businesses rely on reputation alone to stay solvent. If someone is a rip-off artist, they won’t allow reviews, as just a couple of those would sink the business. We would like to be able to offer the ability to look up reviews of tradelines, the problem with that is every file is different, and because one line worked perfectly for Person A, it doesn’t mean Person B will get the same results, so the lines do not get reviewed. If you are looking to add trade lines, we will also give this advice: make sure you get a contract. A contract shows this person or business has covered their bases legally, and should also let you know what they guarantee. If you are unsure of what you are buying, how can you make an informed decision?
