Rep. Jim Banks and 56 House Republicans sent a letter to Secretary Lloyd Austin asking about the federal funds going to colleges and universities with ties to the Chinese government.
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens published an op-ed Thursday admitting he was wrong about Trump voters and expressing regret for calling them “appalling.”
The full strawberry moon, the next full moon, will fall on June 13-14. The supermoon is also known as the honey moon, mead moon or rose moon, according to NASA.
You probably know why you need tradelines on your business credit reports. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to get them there. Adding tradelines is important, but you should definitely avoid business tradelines for sale. Buying tradelines can hurt more than it helps.
Honestly, there are no shortcuts in life or business. Think about it. Inevitably when you try to cut corners to make things go faster, you miss something important. More times than not, it ends up costing more time and money than it would have if you had just done it the right way to begin with. This is as true about building business credit as it is anything else.
Still, some people try shortcuts anyway. The top three “shortcuts” to building business credit are:
For many, buying tradelines seems like the easiest and least risky shortcut. However, these 6 organizations agree, it’s just not worth it.
“The potential distortions in credit scores that piggybacking credit may introduce suggest that a reconsideration of existing regulations, industry practices, or both may be warranted to preserve the predictiveness of credit scoring models.”
Credit Where None is Due? Authorized User Account Status and “Piggybacking Credit”, Robert B. Avery, Kenneth P. Brevoort, Glenn B. Canner (Federal Reserve Board, March 5, 2010)
According to a Former D&B Employee:
“Opening a business credit account with any company is free. If you are paying for it, you are being ripped off. When the company who sold that tradeline to you gets taken down, all of their clients will get punished, too, with a mound of debt and a cursed credit file that will keep you from getting more credit to be able to pay it off.”
Joy Greenwood, 10 Common Trade-Line Mistakes, June 5, 2015
When commenting on a 2013 bust of a fraud ring, “A second kind of tradeline is the “authorized user” tradeline, where a credit card holder adds another, so-called “authorized user,” to a credit card account. This raises the credit score of the authorized user, who inherits some of the primary user’s credit history.
Some defendants created and sold fake lines of credit for false identities made up by other defendants. These fraudulent primary tradelines were then used to increase the credit limits on fraud cards, so that the defendants could reap even larger profits. Defendants used the authorized user tradelines to create new identities.”
FICO’s opinion on piggybacking is obvious here: “A … shadier version of piggybacking has been promoted by some CROs who offer to “rent” to their credit-challenged customers the trade lines of established account holders, in an effort to boost their customers’ credit profiles and scores.”
Equifax: “… authorized user abuse occurs when low-risk primary card owners “rent” their tradelines with extensive credit histories, high credit limits and solid repayment profiles to others – most times, knowingly, to fraudsters.”
Experian: “Buying tradelines may be viewed as deceptive by lenders and credit reporting agencies, and could even put you in danger of committing bank fraud.
Credit scores are designed to help lenders determine a borrower’s creditworthiness, and most use your credit scores and credit reports to determine whether to approve a credit application and what terms you qualify for.
If you pay money to improve your credit scores without doing any of the work or even getting a card to use, you could be falsely representing your creditworthiness to potential lenders.”
So, what are business trade lines, and how does buying business tradelines for sale work? Legit business trade lines are lines of credit extended to businesses by vendors. A business gets goods or services and agrees to pay for them at a later date. Tradelines are often established between a business and a vendor, rather than a line of credit offered by a bank. They can help businesses build credit by rapidly building positive credit experiences.
There are many companies online which promise to sell ‘seasoned’ tradelines. If your company has poor or little credit, you can pay to have your business piggyback on the account of someone with well established, strong credit. This allows new business owners to seem more creditworthy than they really are. Sounds fishy right?
A third party uses a creditworthy borrower’s accounts to improve their own credit. The borrower adds the third party as a user of his lines of credit. But, he or she does not actually provide the third party with credit cards or account numbers. The third party has no way to actually make charges against the account. As a result, that third party user never actually uses the credit.
The benefit to the third party is an improved credit rating. It appears they already have higher limit revolving accounts. In theory, showing you already have credit makes you more creditworthy for higher limit accounts. Some companies claim to be able to secure $100,000 – 250,000 credit lines once these accounts are reporting. Obviously, this buying of business tradelines for sale is dishonest.
A company offering the piggybacking service maintains a network of creditworthy ‘card holders’ or ‘vendors.’ They will add strangers to their accounts as users for a fee. A third party, looking to increase their credit score, contacts the company. Then, the company selects one of the business tradelines for sale to the client, and charges the client a fee per account.
Now, it’s important to note that personal credit works differently than business credit in this area, and many other areas for that matter.
Consumer trades such as this are legitimate. A person with poor credit can use this strategy without issue. So, if you know someone with great credit, it is perfectly fine to ask if you can become an authorized user on their card. You never need to use the card, and it can still help to raise your personal credit scores.
But, in the business credit realm, things are much different. Consider what the following agencies have to say.
Lenders and CRAs know all the unethical methods out there. They know what to look for, and they are looking. For example, when they see a change in company ownership, or a new authorized user on a card, they dig deeper. Furthermore, sooner or later D&B will figure out you are using business tradelines for sale. If a tradeline sales company inquires into your credit report, D & B finds out.
Any time you buy a tradeline, the seller checks your credit. Of course they do, because they want to be sure they get paid. When this happens, here is what happens next:
In addition, when a company has a reputation of being a tradeline seller, that company will be flagged as such. Any new inquiries by that flagged tradeline seller harms buyers, including older tradeline sales. There is no Statute of Limitations on this. That means, if you bought tradelines 50 years ago, D&B may still find out and it can still harm you.
Buying tradelines involves buying tradelines that belong to others and putting them on your credit report. While not technically illegal, it is dishonest. If a lender figures out you are doing it, you could be black balled. It isn’t worth it.
Still, adding tradelines to your business credit report is vital. You just have to do it the right way. Our Business Finance Suite helps you do just that. It walks you through the process step-by-step, so you get your own tradelines that you can actually use. Find out more today by getting a free Business Finance Assessment with a Credit Suite specialist.
The post It’s Not Worth It: Here’s What 6 Organizations Have to Say About Buying Business Tradelines for Sale appeared first on Credit Suite.
Business credit is a journey, not a destination. It’s not somewhere you get to, but rather a road you travel down, continually making progress. It’s time to change our mindset from business credit being a thing you get quickly, to being a thing you can start building quickly, and then continue building upon. This is the truth behind fast business credit
Growing your business credit portfolio doesn’t happen overnight. Your portfolio can grow over the life of your business. The key to speed is to get accounts that will build business credit while growing your portfolio at the same time.
Start with a Fundable Foundation. Then, get initial accounts reporting. Knowing which accounts will approve you and report positive payment history is essential.
With a Fundable foundation, you can start applying for initial accounts. These are limited, but as you grow, more tools become available. There are not a ton of vendors that offer credit without an established business credit score, and of the ones that do, even fewer report positive payment history.
Even if they do, they do not always make it easy to find that out, or what they require for approval. Applying for and using smaller accounts that report sets you up to qualify for accounts that are harder to get in the future.
The major roadblock when it comes to building business credit is finding accounts that you both qualify for and that will report positive payment history.
If you just start applying for credit in the name of your business, without knowing if you qualify or if they will report, your progress will be slow.
This is the beauty of the Credit Suite Business Credit Builder. We find the vendors for you and tell you which ones to apply for and when. This saves you an abundance of time.
In fact, we gather all of the business credit building blocks together in one place and tell you when it is time to use each one. We offer lists of vetted vendors as you become eligible for them. This cuts out considerable time over the trial and error method.
When you know specifically which accounts will approve you and report your positive payment history, you stop wasting time on accounts that will do neither.
Once you complete the steps, the initial building process is done. However, you aren’t finished growing your portfolio. That process continues. The Business Credit Builder has a large list of advanced vendors. These vendors extend credit to businesses based on business credit scores, but they may not report.
Still, they are important to your business credit portfolio. They allow you to get supplies you need to serve your clients and pay for them after you are paid for the job. As you grow, you can ask for higher limits. The best part is, you have access to this list for 5 years!
Think of a business credit portfolio as a pool of various types of business credit. You can leverage it to run your business successfully. This “pool” will allow you to further business growth and success.
A well-rounded business credit portfolio can include both PG and non-PG financing. In general, personal guarantees should be avoided, but sometimes you just can’t avoid them. If a personal guarantee will help you qualify for funding or credit cards, and you wouldn’t qualify without it, it can be smart to offer one. This is especially true if they report payments to the business credit CRAs. Then they can help you build your business credit score.
You can get business credit quickly, in the form of vendor credit, soon after you set up a Fundable Foundation. But, you won’t get anywhere on vendor credit alone. You need a variety of types of business credit accounts. The only way to get those is to continue building on the accounts you have and manage them responsibly.
The post How to Build Credit for A Business: The Truth About Fast Business Credit appeared first on Credit Suite.
Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Núñez spoke with “The Ingraham Angle” about her state’s bill that is facing criticism from Democrats.
The “Real Time” host suggested there’s a “kernel of truth” behind the education reform effort in the Sunshine State.
There are 125 factors that affect the fundability of your business. Personal credit is one of them. Since it impacts the fundability of your business, personal credit impacts business operations.
Fundability is the obvious one. This is the ability of your business to get funding. If you don’t have funding for your business, it can’t operate.
However, there are more subtle effects as well. For example, if you are worried about your personal finances, business decisions can suffer. You may be more tempted to make decisions based on trying to control personal issues, rather than what is best for the business. Personal financial issues can distract you from running your business well.
Bad credit doesn’t have to be the downfall of your business. Some factors are out of your control. Others are not. The key is to know what is causing the problem, fix what you can, and mitigate the rest.
One way to mitigate personal bad credit and its negative impact on business operations is to build strong business credit. It can also help to know which types of funding rely most heavily on the credit score from your personal report.
Until you improve your credit, you may not qualify for a traditional business loan. However, there are other options.
While you are working on improving your credit score, you don’t have to be stuck without funding. You just have to find those types of funding that you can qualify to get with a less than ideal credit score.
If you have open invoices and offer credit to customers in some form, then you can get paid faster with invoice factoring. Usually, this involves invoices with net terms, such as net 30, 60, or 90. You turn those invoices over to a factoring company, and they give you an agreed upon percentage of the total of the invoices. You get this amount of money immediately, and when your customer pays, the factoring company keeps their agreed upon fee while sending the balance to you.
A merchant cash advance (MCA) technically isn’t a loan. Rather, it is a cash advance based upon the credit card sales of a business. A small business can apply for an MCA, and have an advance deposited into its account fairly quickly. This is ideal for business owners who accept credit cards and are looking for fast and easy business financing.
A lender will review 3 months of bank and merchant account statements, looking for consistent deposits. They’ll also verify revenue of $50,000 or higher per year and a time in business of 6 months or longer. A lot of Non-Sufficient-Funds (NSFs) showing on your bank statements will likely be a deal breaker, as will excessive chargebacks on merchant statements.
Basically, they want to see that you manage your bank and merchant accounts responsibly. Of course, a decent number of consistent credit card transaction deposits each month is important for this type of financing as well.
Fundbox offers a revolving line of credit for up to $100,000 and will auto debit your weekly payment from your bank account. They connect directly to your online accounting software. You pay in equal installments over the course of a 12 or 24 week plan.
You do need to have a 600+ personal FICO score and $100,000+ in annual revenue, and you must have a business checking account. Ideally, you will also have 6 months in business or more.
If you have bad credit, it needs to be fixed. How do you do that? The short answer is, pay your bills. Still, if you already have bad credit, it will take some time for that to make a difference.
Also, make sure your credit report is current and free of mistakes. YIn fact, you can get a free copy of your credit report annually.
The three main reporting agencies when it comes to personal credit are:
You can get a free report from all three each year. How?
Per FTC.Gov:
“You’re entitled to one free copy of your credit report every 12 months from each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies. Order online from annualcreditreport.com, the only authorized website for free credit reports, or call 1-877-322-8228. You will need to provide your name, address, social security number, and date of birth to verify your identity.”
Once you get your report, read it carefully and make certain all of your information is correct. Contact the appropriate credit agency in their preferred manner if you find a mistake. Each agency has its own procedures for corrections. Generally, you can find them on their website. Online options for disputes are more common now due to the pandemic.
These steps will help you get a jump on improving your credit score.
In addition to a free copy of your credit report each year, there are free monitoring services that will give you an updated credit score each month. New information that has been posted to your credit report is available with some of these services. As a bonus, some will offer suggestions as to which factors are dragging down your score. Some of these services even provide real-time credit updates for a fee.
Of course, a good FICO score will impact business operations as well. Business lenders will generally look at personal credit when you apply. Consequently, good credit will not only help you get approvals, but better rates and terms also.
Maintaining good credit is important for a number of reasons. Keeping your business running is one of them.
The post What You Need to Know About How Personal Credit Impacts Business Operations appeared first on Credit Suite.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently settled a case against Dun & Bradstreet, the business credit bureau. The case was about its CreditBuilder product.
To settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it engaged in deceptive and unfair practices, D&B agreed to an order. This order required major changes in its operations. The idea is to benefit small- and mid-sized businesses. Under the proposed order, D&B (the Respondent) will also refund some businesses that bought the company’s products. Businesses bought these products, believing they would improve business credit scores and ratings.
The initial complaint goes back to at least 2019 and refers to D&B business practices from 2015 and later. In this case, the FTC is the complainant and D&B is the respondent.
Per the complaint (paragraph 2):
From at least May 2015, D&B sold and distributed products to small and mid-sized business consumers. These included products D&B claims will help a business monitor, manage, and build its business credit report. D&B claims the products offer an easy way to provide positive payment history. This is history otherwise unreported by D&B. The aim is to improve the business’s credit report.
But in fact, D&B rejects most of the submissions. Thousands of businesses that have paid for these products cannot get even a single payment experience added to their reports.
The complaint (paragraph 16) also said:
Respondent has routinely deceptively claimed that if an affected business would simply purchase a CreditBuilder Line product and provide information to Respondent, Respondent would verify that information and add it to the credit report. For example, in pitching … (these) … products, Respondent’s telemarketers have made specific deceptive claims including, “we will contact those companies that you add … [and] verify that payment history going back a full 12 months,” and “[i]t’s a really easy process[,] I just need a little bit of information from you and we basically take over the rest from there.”
CreditBuilder and related products were already expensive to begin with. They cost almost $900/year. And in 2018, after selling ever more expensive products, D&B came out with Credit Essentials Plus (after releasing CreditBuilder Plus and other products). It had a price tag of almost $2,500. But in 2013, CreditBuilder cost $948.
Hence, in five years, the price of the information and features in this product rose by over 163%. In contrast, the actual inflation rate for this five-year span was less than 3%.
Many times, telemarketers for D&B told business owners that using CreditBuilder would be a fast and easy way to add trade references. But such was not the case.
In paragraph 51, the complaint says that often and for various reasons, D&B rejected trade references added by CreditBuilder Line customers. And they didn’t include this information on their credit report.
D&B employees convinced business owners to sign up for expensive services. And then they never bothered to do what they promised to do, anyway.
Hence, beyond the issue of hard selling services which entrepreneurs didn’t need, there’s also an issue of breaking their promises. D&B was paid for services it didn’t render. And this doesn’t even get into what looks an awful lot like price gouging.
Furthermore, entrepreneurs had to spend considerable time and money correcting several errors on D&B’s part.
And finally, these issues may even date back at least to 2013.
There don’t appear to have been too many arguments by Dun & Bradstreet in favor of its practices. The Federal Trade Commission makes arguments like the issues listed above.
The matter was settled, and Dun & Bradstreet agreed to:
By the looks of the above proposed order, D&B conceded on pretty much everything.
Per the FTC, business owners should review credit card statements often and with care. And consider any and all subscriptions on a regular basis. If the subscription isn’t needed, then get rid of it. The same goes for subscriptions you were signed up for without your knowledge and consent. If you have no idea what a subscription is for, or how it got on your bill, don’t hesitate to ditch it.
At Credit Suite, we help you monitor your business credit reports. This could help you spot charges you don’t recognize. But any way you monitor, we encourage you to review all statements, bills, and reports. Do so before anything like this has the potential to happen again.
And finally, we still believe trade references are an excellent addition to any business credit report. We hope Dun & Bradstreet will improve its means of adding trade references. Small business owners should be able to reap the benefits of such added data on their business credit reports.
The post The FTC to Dun & Bradstreet—Stop Deceiving Businesses About CreditBuilder Services and Pricing appeared first on Credit Suite.
This guy wasn’t aiming at election fraud, but that’s small comfort.
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