Piggyback credit card schemes aggravate mortgage problems

But Experian says it has no firm timetable to make the model available. The two other bureaus — Equifax and TransUnion — are not scheduled to receive the model until sometime in 2008, according to Craig Watts, a Fair Isaac spokesman. The piggybacking problem involves Internet-based firms that rent high-quality credit account histories to people with bad credit. Web sites claim to be able to raise consumers’ scores by 100 to 200 points — or more — within 30 to 90 days.

They do this by paying credit card holders with excellent payment histories money to open their accounts to authorized users who sometimes are charged $1,000 to $2,000. Once listed as an authorized user — even with no physical access to the Visa or MasterCard itself — the positive credit history of the cardholder flows through to the credit files of the piggybacker.
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