I wrote a post here a couple of months ago about the ethical issues surrounding the new emerging industry of renting a credit score, or “piggy backing”.

At the time of writing that post it was legal and still is today however, the ethical side of the debate is still in question. Because I can make an arguement on both sides, I've decided not to throw my opinion into the arena.

However, my point of this post is to clarify the mislabeling of this practice. It’s being referred to as a credit repair service. Just to set the record straight, it is not credit repair.

The credit repair industry is bad enough and most people know My Credit Group has always been a leader in ethics and integrity. The last thing we need is a push in the wrong direction by being found guilt by association with a different industry.

Credit Repair companies are regulated on a federal level (at least the ethical ones). There are strict licensing and bonding requirements.

Companies offering to rent tradelines like rentatradeline.com and ICB have nothing to do with credit repair. There are no licensing requirements; no bonding requirements and they do nothing to help you remove the negative, inaccurate information on your credit report.

They simply add tradelines to your credit report and nothing more. While it’s easy to confuse the two, there is a very big difference. It’s like calling a auto body shop mechanics. They both work on cars, but in two entirely different ways.

I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t bitch at somebody

Again, I’m not going to get into the whole ethics debate regarding this industry, but I will say to the crybabies out there, lets call it like it is.

In this quote from MSNBC; Lenders seem as though they might want to start blaming the sub prime debacle on this practice as you can see in this quote.

“Lenders are worried, however, that they’re taking on greater default risks by unknowingly offering lower interest rates than they otherwise would to applicants who artificially boost their credit scores.”

Ok let’s keep it real guys. I hardly doubt its bringing on a greater default risk. If anything it might lower the risk. Think about this for a moment.

If a higher credit score lowers interest which lowers payments - isn’t that decreasing the risk? Remember, we’re not talking about income, or debt to income, were talking about interest rates and payments.

What I think they meant to say is it is taking away from their commissions by lowering interest rates.

Again, not defending the practice, just trying to keep it real.