Will a Tradeline Help If You Have Bad Credit?

Disclosure: Tradeline Tribe and 30 Day Credit Pros are affiliated companies.

If your credit has late payments, collections or charge-offs, you might wonder whether a tradeline can fix it. The honest answer: it can help, but it can’t erase the negatives.

What a tradeline can do with bad credit

• Add a long, positive payment history to balance out negative marks.
• Lower your credit utilization if your own cards carry high balances.
• Raise the average age of your accounts.

What it can’t do

• Remove collections, charge-offs, repossessions or bankruptcies.
• Remove late payments on your own accounts.
• Change how lenders view recent serious delinquencies.

The order that works best

1. Review all three credit reports for errors.
2. Dispute anything inaccurate, like collections that aren’t yours, wrong balances, or late payments that weren’t late.
3. Get current on every open account and keep it that way.
4. Add a seasoned tradeline to build positive history on top of a cleaner report.

Need help with step 2?

30 Day Credit Pros reviews your Equifax, Experian and TransUnion reports and disputes items that appear inaccurate or unverifiable. Their article on how to raise your credit score fast explains the quickest wins.

When you’re ready to add positive history, browse available tradelines.