Adding aged credit lines under your name helps improve your ratings. These are well-maintained accounts with low balance and faultless payment history. Given the present economic slowdown, it will greatly help if you have high credit score.

Today, it is also possible for people with bad credits to drastically improve their ratings by piggybacking or using seasoned trade lines strategy. This is a process wherein those guys with bad ratings can rent the payment history of people with good scores by becoming an authorized user of their credit card. In doing so, it will reflect the outstanding profile of primary cardholder's, thereby increasing their scores.

While this is a common occurrence among parents authorizing their children to use their cards, there are many online businesses now using this method (which is legal) by offering this service for a fee ranging from $1,000 to $3000 per transaction. They pay people with good scores to authorize strangers on their cards.

According to financial experts, this process is technically legal but they view this approach rather unethical. It is tantamount to identity theft or misrepresentation to some extent. At this time, many lenders are complaining about the effects of this new strategy.

A good credit score has some perks like lower interest rates, immediate approval of loans, and serves as good reference for employment. By authorizing other people, they can enjoy these perks even if they are delinquent payers.

To put an end on this escalating dispute, Fair Isaac Corporation, the company that developed the widely accepted FICO credit scores, has decided to revise its scoring system starting this September 2007. Under this new system, authorized users will no longer be considered in the evaluation.

With more than 90% of the nation's banks relying on FICO score to make their business decisions, this new development is expected to normalize the situation and minimize the alleged abuses made by many companies engaged in seasoned trade lines.

"Fair Isaac has become aware that Web-based services are using authorized trade lines to defraud lenders. While we work with the financial services industry on an industry solution, we wanted to protect lenders and FICO scores," says Fair Isaac spokesman Craig Watts in an article on Bankrate.com.

But ardent supporters and business owners running seasoned tradelines strategy are not taking this development sitting down. According to John Coates, spokesman of one of the leading seasoned tradelines companies said their very existence is the product of flaws from different scoring agencies. This new system will also greatly affect parents authorizing their children to use their card.

Moreover, they will continue to fight these flaws by establishing communities to impede this new scoring system.

"We are building a community of people that are going to stand up. We will petition against it and we are actually going to formulate plans to work together as a grassroots effort to actually create a financial revolution," says Coates in an article in BankRate.com.

Think carefully before getting caught up on this scuffle between rating agencies and seasoned tradelines companies by building your own aged credit lines. The key here is discipline and knowing your limits and needs. You can then make a informed decision whether or not you need to pay and rent the tradelines of other people or piggyback from your parents' accounts.