Piggyback Credit

Piggyback credit is when an individual authorizes another user on his credit card account. Then the credit card account (assuming its in good standing) will report positive lines of credit on the recently added authorized users' credit report.

This is common to be used for younger family members or to help out a spouse or a relative with damaged credit. This tool can help build positive credit.

However this method was abused by credit repair companies. They would set up people with damaged credit and then find people with good credit who were in need of some extra money. They would partner these two individuals together for a fee.

As a result of this abuse the fico scoring system has proposed some changes to their scoring model to discount this method. This raised a huge amount of controversy and a congressional hearing was held.

The hearing supported the changes. So at some future date this method will not be as effective however right now it is still an easy and cheap method to build some positive credit.

Be careful about whos' account you choose to be added to. The reason is because if the account becomes delinquent and past due and is reported negatively it can also hurt your score. Thus choose wisely.