Patrick @ Lendvo is right.... if they care enough to go through boosting, they care about things more. And they'll less likely let it happen twice. They learn about how to maintain good credit, and they'll enjoy the benefits of better credit moving forward.

Just don't take them to the bank they defaulted on for a credit card.... the bank's internal records still have them on file, even 7-10 years later after it's not showing up on the credit report.

The funny part was my client who defaulted student loans.... then when she wanted more funding after a few months, her credit showed a charge-off/default with LoanMe. She told me, "Okay, get me a loan now, and I will work on my credit." I didn't tell her, but I wanted to say, "You have to work on paying back your loans!"

To add Authorized User cards to "boost your score for a loan" I read once is officially fraud.... but there's no way to control or stop it, and they don't go after anyone who does it, so I'm not sure that there's a place to be concerned about ethics. You can call it illegal as long as you want, but it's just not enforced by anyone, so you can't call that a legit law. And it definitely works for some lenders (the non-bank real estate people) and funders (many quick-to-the-draw MCA funders) who care nothing other than the score (and the FICO and the VantageScore are completely different metrics, a sub-500 will be different for each...)