These days, you really need a side hustle. The days of having a career that lasts your whole life are most certainly over. It’s becoming the case where we don’t have one career, but 5+ careers as things are moving so fast. And how about the fact that there a lot of jobs that currently exist that may become obsolete in the near future. This isn’t a doom and gloom post, more a gentle reminder that it’s important to have multiple streams of income in case something happens to one of them. Just ask the people who had fathers that were milkmen–that was an actual job, a man would get in a truck and deliver milk, and got paid a living wage for it, but that went the way of the dodo when the modern supermarket was invented. So if you are in a position where you only have one stream of income, there isn’t a much more lucrative way to make money than rent tradelines that you aren’t using.
What’s a Tradeline?
“Tradeline” is a specific term for anything that reports on your credit. In the tradeline industry, it usually means authorized tradelines, otherwise known as authorized user tradelines. Every credit card you own has a number of these AU spots that you can add anyone to. When you add someone, the data–age of account, limit, payment history–gets reported to that person’s credit. As soon as it shows, they get a new tradeline alert, along with a (usually) healthy boost in their score. So the question becomes, do you want to go out on your own, or partner with a professional organization?
Working with Tradeline Companies
Some people want to buy tradelines, but if you want to sell tradelines, it’s usually a good thing to start working with professional companies. They have the resources to get your spots sold regularly, as it will usually require something more than word of mouth to sell your spots. And they are always looking for people that have legit tradelines, always on the lookout for people who are good communicators who want to find a genuine income stream. And if you’re wondering what kind of credit cards they are looking for. Pretty much any kind, as long as they are with a major lender, have no missed payments, and have some history–over two years is considered a seasoned tradeline.
But, Which Companies are Good Companies?
This is something you will need to research on your own. We’d like to throw our hat in the ring as the best company around, but that’s up to the public. We take our tradeline brokers very serious, and we take our cardholders equally serious. We have contracts in place for every cardholder who works with us, and we don’t hold funds net 60 and beyond. We also hold every payment in escrow until the contract we have with buyers is complete. We have several different tradeline packages that allows us to bundle the lines together so we make sure we get them sold regularly. We also keep our business simple, focusing on people looking for a personal trade, as we don’t do anything with business tradelines. It is by being specialized that allows us to really hammer down getting our postings as successful as possible, so we make sure people get paid consistently.
Bottom Line
Selling tradelines is a much better money making venture than giving away free tradelines, which is something you may do as a favor for a family member, or very, very close friend. Why do something for free if you can get paid for it? And it can be very worth your while. One article claimed you can make $1000/hr by selling tradelines. This may be a bit of an exaggeration. Even if you were the tradelinemaster, it would be difficult, not because the money isn’t there, but because that metric is saying you make that much money by the time you put in compared to the payment you get. It can be several hundred dollars, even up to a thousand dollars a month (or more), but that’s for putting in twenty minutes here and there. The bottom line, there isn’t much else you can do to make money on things (unused credit cards) that are probably collecting dust.
