Credit piggybacking can prevent foreclosure.

• Position: Subprime Crisis - Brief article

Individuals with adjustable mortgages whose payments have escalated beyond their means and whose credit scores are too low to refinance are finding a creative way to keep from losing their homes to foreclosure. Commonly referred to as credit piggybacking, the method has been used since credit cards were created and has been in practice on a large scale for the past year.

According to Ted Stearns, owner of TradeLine Solutions, Inc., a San Diego, Calif., company that offers the service, the practice enables individuals to improve their credit scores approximately 200 points within a month. The way it works is that the company offering the service maintains a portfolio of trade lines--or credit accounts--that have perfect payment histories. The accounts never can have a late payment for 10 years. By adding the individual as an authorized user to one of the good-standing credit accounts, that individual's credit score automatically increases by several points.

"It's no different than parents adding a child as a user to one of their accounts, the only difference is that we're doing this with several credit accounts for individuals to help them build their credit back up, say, from 500 to 700, so that they can qualify for a loan with a lower interest rate and save their home," explains...