[emersonbiggins]

Brilliant!



$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')ebtors can rent another's credit line
Originally published April 6, 2007

When your credit scores don't qualify you for the home mortgage you want, where do you turn? That's an especially timely question now, as banks and mortgage companies tighten underwriting standards for applicants with less than perfect credit.

But federal and state authorities fear that some borrowers are turning to a fast-growing business on the Internet: companies that claim to boost credit scores by transplanting the credit DNA of people with excellent payment histories into the credit files of people with sub-par histories - ostensibly without breaking any law.

The companies claim to raise FICO credit scores by 50 to 250 points or more by adding low-scoring borrowers as "authorized users" onto the credit card accounts of people with FICO scores well in excess of 700. The positive payment information from such cardholders then flows into the files of the persons with sub-par credit.
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more at Baltimore Sun

[Twilight]

What next? Unsolicited loans?

[I_Like_Plants]

Um, do the high-score people KNOW the low-score people are being added onto their cards??

Also, unsolicited loans are not unknown, a friend of mine and myself both got 'em for $5k each in the late 90s. I used mine and paid it off ahead of schedule, he used his to start up a TV repair shop, which tanked.

[emersonbiggins]

More about this line of practice, called "piggybacking"...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')nly a low credit score stood between Alipio Estruch and a mortgage to buy a $449,000 Spanish-style house in Weston, Fla., a few miles west of Fort Lauderdale.

Instead of spending several years repairing his credit rating, which he said was marred by two forgotten cell phone bills and identity theft, the 37-year-old real estate agent paid $1,800 to an Internet-based company to bump up his score almost overnight.

The result was a happy ending for Estruch, but the growing practice is sending shivers through the mortgage industry. Federal regulators are also reviewing the practice. And after being contacted by The Associated Press for this story, Fair Isaac Corp., the developer of the widely used FICO score, said it will change its credit scoring system beginning later this year in a way it contends will end this little-known but potentially high-impact mortgage loan loophole.

Instantcreditbuilders.com, or ICB, helped Estruch boost his score by arranging for him to be added as an authorized user on several credit cards of people with stellar credit who were paid to allow this coattailing. Parents also use this practice when they add their children to their credit cards to help them build solid credit.

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more @ Yahoo! article