 TITLE: Can Piggybacking Credit Help Me Get a Mortgage? CONTENT: How Piggybacking Credit Works\n-----------------------------\nPeople who are new to credit or have a less-than-favorable credit score may have trouble getting credit card accounts on their own because their credit scores are too low, or because they don't even have a credit report from which a credit score can be calculated. One way they can gain access to a credit card is by becoming an authorized user on an established credit card account, sometimes referred to as \"piggybacking.\"\nBecause most, but not all, credit card companies report the authorized user's purchases and payments to the three national credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion), authorized users can establish a pattern of credit usage that may help them build up their credit over time. As long as the primary user doesn't miss payments or carry excessive balances, the authorized user can establish a credit history even if they don't use any credit themselves. However, this strategy won't help authorized users learn good credit habits or how to create their own solid credit history over time.\nThis practice has given rise to third-party companies that, for fees often in the thousands of dollars, will make you an authorized user on someone else's credit card account for a short period of time (without actually issuing you a card) as a means of artificially boosting your credit scores.\nPaying for this type of service is highly questionable and can cause many more problems than it's worth. The number of lenders reporting primary-user activity on authorized users' credit reports is shrinking, and the latest versions of the FICO® Score☉ and VantageScore® credit scoring systems take steps to downplay the impact of certain authorized-user accounts in an attempt to discourage this practice. In certain instances, using a for-profit piggybacking service could be interpreted as bank fraud. END