Free · Independent · No tradelines for sale
The whole authorized user strategy, free.
The definitive free resource on the authorized user strategy — what it is, what it does, what is legal, what is a gray area, and exactly how to do it yourself — without paying for tradelines or trusting a stranger with your credit.
Educational only. Not financial advice. We don't sell tradelines.
| Day | Equifax | Experian | TransUnion |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00 | ___ | ___ | ___ |
| 07 | ___ | ___ | ___ |
| 14 | ___ | ___ | ___ |
| 21 | ___ | ___ | ___ |
| 30 | ___ | ___ | ___ |
Day 00 is your baseline, before you are added. Plus: the date the account first appears, its reported limit, balance and age, per bureau.
Sources, not sales copy
Where our information comes from
Every claim we make traces back to a primary source: a regulator, the law itself, the scoring companies or the bureaus. When something can't be traced, we say it's unverified. Every video description lists its sources with links.
-
Regulator
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Consumer guidance on credit reports, scores, disputes and authorized users.
-
Regulator
Federal Trade Commission
The Credit Repair Organizations Act and FTC warnings about credit-repair and tradeline-selling schemes.
-
Law
FCRA, ECOA & Regulation B
Your rights to accurate reports and disputes, and how creditors must report accounts shared with a spouse.
-
Scoring models
FICO & VantageScore
What the companies that build the scores publish about how authorized user accounts are counted.
-
Bureaus
Equifax, Experian & TransUnion
How each bureau receives, displays and removes authorized user accounts on your report.
-
Business credit
IRS, SBA & Dun & Bradstreet
EIN guidance, SBA small-business resources and D&B business credit files, for when the conversation moves to business credit.
How the channel is organised
Five questions, answered in order
Each video answers one of these. Start at 01 if you're new; skip ahead if you're not.
-
What it is
Being added to someone else's credit card account as an authorized user — who owns the debt, who can use the card, and what shows up on your report.
-
What it does
Which parts of your score it can move (history, utilization, account age), which it can't, and why the same card helps one person and does nothing for another.
-
What is legal
Being added by family or a friend you trust, and what the law says about how that account is reported. ✓ Fact: covered with citations
-
What is a gray area
Paid "seasoned tradelines", how lenders treat them in manual underwriting, and where selling them runs into credit-repair rules. Red flag: sales tactics named
-
How to do it yourself
Choosing the right account, asking the right person, confirming the issuer reports it, and tracking the result on all three reports.
The fine print, translated
What sellers say, and how it actually works
"Guaranteed 100-point increase."
Any change depends on your existing file, the scoring model and whether the issuer reports the account at all. Nobody can guarantee a number.
"Our tradelines report to all three bureaus."
Reporting is decided by the card issuer, not the seller, and some issuers don't report authorized users to every bureau. You can check your own reports for free.
"It's 100% legal with no downside."
Being an authorized user is legal. Misrepresenting accounts on a credit application is not, and lenders can discount authorized user accounts when they review a file by hand.
Free download
The 30-Day Authorized User Score Tracker
A structured Google Sheets or PDF template that helps you track your score changes after being added as an authorized user, across all three bureaus. It turns "did it work?" into something you can actually measure.
- A baseline row for Equifax, Experian and TransUnion before you're added
- Check-ins at day 7, 14, 21 and 30, with space for the score model you used
- The date the account first appears on each report, plus its limit, balance and age
- A notes column for anything else that changed that month, so you don't credit the wrong thing
No upsell on the download page. We don't sell tradelines.
Send me the free tracker
Google Sheets and PDF versions. One email with the link, then the occasional new episode. Unsubscribe any time.