Passive Level: Green

Recommendation: Proceed with Caution

Did you know you can make money from your good credit? If you have a long credit history and good credit you can sell that to someone who doesn’t have good credit. You make money and help them build better credit history, so it’s a win-win.

You can earn from $40 to $350 per authorized user depending on the credit limit and age of card. Over a year this could result in you getting $500 to more than $4,000 a year on a single card! This is called selling your tradeline.

How it Works?

Most credit cards allow you to add an authorized user. By selling your tradeline you can add an authorized user. Users do not have access to your credit card for purchases (remember to send the new authorized user card to your house, not the authorized user’s).

You’ll need to have good credit, typically a score over 700. The company you sign up with works with brokers who are typically credit repair companies.

So, you find one of these brokers.

I pinged Tradeline Supply Company to see what my credit was worth.

First, you fill out an application of interest. You’ll then receive an email asking to access your credit history with a site like creditkarma.com.

Note they will want your user name and password, so setup one just for this and then change it back once your application is done. To be honest, this task made me a little skittish.

Following this you will receive a custom quote. Below is what I received:

As you can see one qualifier for this company is to have paid down the card below 15%. This is because that’s one criteria that affects your credit – the amount of total credit utilized. So, credit repair companies market this to their clients.

Once approved, you will be added to a list of other credit sellers to be purchased by credit repair brokers.

Once there is interest you will need to add their name to your card’s list of authorized users – often this can be done online. You may be asked to use that card to show activity.

You will usually keep the authorized user on for up to 60 days, then the company will stop paying you. Once this happens you will remove them from your card. The card can then be put back into the seller system – basically rinse and repeat according to these sellers.

The Good

• You get to benefit from the great credit you have built.
• You truly do this in your sleep.
• You help someone get better credit.

The Bad

• You may be violating your card’s Terms of Service. Many only allow your spouse, partner or kid add their name without written consent from the credit card company.
• Many cards, like Chase, charge a $75 annual fee per authorized user, however you can also downgrade to a card that doesn’t include this fee.
• Enrolling multiple credit cards with the same bank does increase the risk of getting your cards shut down and could get you blacklisted with that bank. Tradeline Supply estimates that 2-5% of cards get closed because of this – they recommend you only enroll up to 2 cards per bank. If your card gets closed and it’s a long standing card your credit score could decline.
• There is a chance that your tradelines could be used to support illegal activity. FrankonFraud goes over this issue in depth.

The Skinny

This is one of those rare income streams that is truly passive as long as you can accept some risks. The big one that your credit card gets closed down. If that’s a card you’ve held for a long time, your credit score could crash.