Category: Employers

Alleged use of credit scores by employers in pre-employment screening.

New America Foundation

The efficacy of a social media message

Hannah Emple, policy analyst, Asset Building Program
New America Foundation

See this message and your response at https://blog.creditscoring.com/?p=5089.

Among other mentions of credit scores on the same page, you wrote, “So if credit scores are error-prone and not a great measure of employability, what ARE they really showing?”

While that does not say, specifically, that employers use credit scores, previously, making your misunderstanding clear, you wrote, “Landlords, employers, utility providers, and others are using credit scores to make determinations about who is permitted to rent a home or who is hired.”

You also link to the New York Times May 11 story, “The Long Shadow of Bad Credit in a Job Search.”  In other recent items, the Times has it wrong, too.

Employers do not use credit scores.  But, if you have evidence (you would be the first), please substantiate your claim with it.  You’re not the first to make that error, and I predict that you won’t be the last.  Unfortunately, the myth is so deep and broad that it is now affecting laws.

How do you correct errors of fact that you have presented?

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
Page A2
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

Happy Birthday, Sandy Patterson

Today, May 18, is the birthday of the character Sandy Bigelow Patterson (played by Jason Bateman) in the motion picture “Identity Thief.”

With a play on words, the production notes say, “With everything to lose after his identity is stolen, he’ll find out how crazed you can get trying to settle a bad credit score.”

Indeed, on an already very bad day for Sandy, his boss at his new job adds to his troubles, saying to him: “Your credit score is 240.  A 240!  There are homeless people with better numbers than that.”

However, in the real world, employers cannot get credit scores.

The screenplay was written by Craig Mazin, who has not replied to a social media message.

Bloomberg News personal finance blog Ventured&Gained

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2013 1:02 PM
To: Rick Levinson, blogger, Ventured&Gained, Bloomberg News
Cc: Meghan Womack, press contact, Bloomberg News
Subject: credit score, employers, edit it

See this message and your response at https://blog.creditscoring.com/?p=5070.

Employers do not use credit scores because they cannot even get them.  However, this week, in the ironically titled “What’s in a Credit Score? Few Know.,” you wrote, “And increasingly, employers are using the scores in hiring decisions.”

I solved that part of the puzzle 5 years ago.  Where have you been?  You also said, “Pretty scary when you consider that these scores help determine whether you’ll get a credit card what[SIC] you’ll pay for it.”

Use complete sentences.

In that publicity piece for VantageScore, you mocked citizens:  “There was one bright spot, however: Apparently folks have gotten the message that making loan payments on time helps raise your credit score. Ninety-four percent of quiz takers got that right.”

It’s no wonder we’re so misinformed.  In this case, since you have such broad influence, I’m ready to listen as you provide your source (or, what you thought was your source) for the mere notion that employers use credit scores, at all.  But it is the “increasingly” part that I’m most interested in.  Who did you get that little gem from?

Or did you just make it up?  I haven’t run across any reports of a New York Noodle Nook 900 credit score requirement to get a job there.  Have you?

The same misinformation that you just published (and its inevitable syndicated error) has serious, real, actual consequences for democracy.  So, stop clucking your tongue at we stupid Americans and respond.  Do so today.  And, make sure that you do not make seem like your error never happened.  What is your correction policy?

Employers do not use credit scores, and media have created a big mess.  You want a scoop?  There’s your big scoop.

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
Page A2
pagea2.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

[NEXT MESSAGE]

Accuracy, transparency and integrity

[ORIGINAL MESSAGE TO AUTHOR, PUBLISHED January 12, 2013]

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 11:44 AM
To: Manisha Thakor
Subject: Adams Media, F+W Media

See this message and your response at https://blog.creditscoring.com/?p=4523.

In your book “On My Own Two Feet” (2007), you wrote, “Increasingly, prospective employers are also looking at this three-digit number, under the assumption that people who are financially responsible make better employees.”

What indicates that, increasingly, employers use credit scores?

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

From: Greg Fisher
Date: January 16, 2013 12:23:37 AM EST
To: Manisha Thakor, Sharon Kedar
Cc: David Nussbaum, chairman and CEO, F+W Media, Inc. (via S. Berger)
Subject: RE: Adams Media, F+W Media II
Reply-To: <greg@creditscoring.com>

Please reply.

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

From: Gissinger, Beth
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 10:34 AM
To: greg@creditscoring.com
Subject: FW: Adams Media, F+W Media II

Hi Greg – I’m sorry you haven’t yet received a reply from Manisha or Sharon. I have reached out to them separately and have directed them to your message. I would expect you will hear from them soon.  Please let me know if you do not.
Best,
Beth
************************************************************
Beth Gissinger
Digital Marketing Director, Adams Media / F+W Media
[phone]
[email]
@bgiss
www.adamsmedia.com

From: Greg Fisher
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 11:14 AM
To: Gissinger, Beth Cc: Manisha Thakor; Sharon Kedar
Subject: RE: Adams Media, F+W Media II

Thank you.

What is your policy regarding errors of fact in your books?

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

From: Gissinger, Beth
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 11:24 AM
To: greg@creditscoring.com
Cc: Manisha Thakor; Sharon Kedar
Subject: RE: Adams Media, F+W Media II

Hi Greg – The authors would work with their editor and the material would be corrected in the next printing of the book.

Thank you

From: Manisha Thakor
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 12:07 PM
To: Gissinger, Beth
Cc: greg@creditscoring.com; Sharon Kedar
Subject: Re: Adams Media, F+W Media II

Greg,

Actually, the statement is not inaccurate as of the time the book was written. As you rightly noted this book came out in 2007, and therefore was written in 2006. At that time there clearly was an “increasing” tendency of employers to incorporate the use of credit scores in to the hiring decision making process.

Subsequent to the 2007 version of this book’s release, there has been a wide range of legislation that has come up to block this practice.  Clearly the need for such legislation is proof positive that is was a an increasingly popular practice at the time the book was written.  And as you can see in a careful reading of the Fair Credit Reporting Act that while the practice has been dramatically curtailed there are still some limited instances where it is permitted.

FAIR CREDIT REPORTING ACT: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/031224fcra.pdf
SHORT SUMMARY OF CURRENT PRACTICES: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/running-credit-checks-applicants-35457.html
EXAMPLES OF LEGISLATION INTRODUCED AFTER OUR BOOK WAS WRITTEN: http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/banking/use-of-credit-info-in-employ-2012-legis.aspx

Individuals reading this (or any nonfiction book) should note it’s publication date to have context for the content.  Clearly if either one of us were to write a new book (or if sales of this old book justified a reprint of an updated 2013 version) the statement in 2013 would exclude the word “increasingly” and be something to the effect of alerting individuals that striving to maintain a good credit score is good financial hygiene as there “may be” instances where an employer requests their permission to check their credit score as part of a job application.

I reviewed your website and could not find anything at all about your professional background or qualifications.  Could you please let us all know a bit more about who you are and what your organization is trying to achieve in reaching out to us in this very terse and insistent manner about a clearly denoted 2007 book that at present has no plans to be re-released in an “updated and revised 2013” version?

All of us, both publisher & authors, are committed to accuracy, transparency, and integrity in our work and would respectfully request the same from anyone reaching out to us.

Manisha

From: Greg Fisher
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 1:07 AM
To: Manisha Thakor, financial expert
Subject: RE: Adams Media, F+W Media II, credentials, credence

Ms. Thakor:

I don’t know the Ivy League qualifications to send email, but I know the truth.  There is no need for legislation to stop the use of credit scores in employment because it is a practice (increasing, decreasing or otherwise) that does not exist—except in imaginations.

I am in no organization.  I am a citizen—a person who the consumer reporting agencies subject to the FCRA have compiled and maintain files on—and since 1998, the author of creditscoring.com.  In 1989, someone mentioned a “Beacon” FICO credit score of one of my files.  In the early 1990s, I saw a FICO score for the first time.  In 1997, I asked the consumer reporting agencies for their credit scores of their files on me.  In 2001, 2002 and 2003, they began providing them.

This year is an important 5-year mark because in 2008, I asked the CRAs if they provide credit scores to employers and they replied that they do not.  In fact, one even testified so.  And, I haven’t heard of one person saying that the Acme Widget Company requires a 600 to get a job there; you’d think that would have bubbled up by now.  If it ever comes to light, the employer can say goodbye to the scores because they are violating their contract with the credit bureau.

Here is a blurb from a press release that I wrote:

About the Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com, The Credit Scoring Site, has tracked events and trends in credit scoring since 1998. Approaching the topic of credit scores from a consumer’s perspective, creditscoring.com asks the questions an average person would ask, and provides relevant, useable, documented analyses. For more information, contact The Credit Scoring Site, 937-681-3224; email: greg@creditscoring.com; website: http://creditscoring.com. PO Box 342, Dayton, Ohio 45409-0342.

A long time ago, Nolo (who you mentioned) said that I use creditscoring.com to launch “often strident, sometimes wacky, but usually well-documented attacks on the credit-scoring concept and the industries that support it.”  Facts, documentation and sources are merely essentials.  But I’m particularly proud of the “wacky” part.

A Federal Reserve publication calls my work “interesting reading.”  Have you ever been mentioned by the Fed?  It’s thrilling.  On the other hand, McClatchy’s News and Observer published: “He’s also no fan of people who disseminate misinformation. His website shows a dogged determination to go after everyone who gets it wrong: journalists, the Federal Reserve, the credit bureaus, talk show hosts.”

Because of the poor response by mass media (and the desperate, pathetic ad hominem tactic) regarding this silly-turned-serious employers nonsense that you fuel, I began writing Page A2 – Media accuracy, errors and corrections.  However, I have no illusions about the dark future of misinformation.  I struggle with that, the deep and broad influence of a solitary, 12 year old crackpot, the meaning of expert and Rachel at Cardholder Services’ real name.

Other like-minded detractors to the employers myth are John Ulzheimer, the Baltimore Sun, the Columbia Daily Tribune, Kevin Drum, the USA Today editorial department and Lester Rosen.  I want to extinguish that myth because Americans have enough to worry about.

Please quote the words in the documents that you provided links to that indicate that employers use credit scores.

In your book “Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money with Your Honey” (2010), you claim, “Many people don’t realize this, but your credit score is used for all sorts of things like determining how much you’d pay for a home or car loan, whether a landlord will rent to you, what kinds of rates insurance companies will charge you, and even if an employer is willing to hire you.”

So, when did you write that one?  And, what are the names of two employers who use credit scores?

I don’t reach out.  Now, are you still a Believer, or are you a Nonbeliever?

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

From: Manisha Thakor
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 5:44 PM
To: greg@creditscoring.com
Cc: Duffy, Chris; Beth Gissinger; Sharon Kedar Subject:
Re: Adams Media, F+W Media II, credentials, credence

Greg,

Thank you for this additional background.

We share your desire not to perpetuate mis-information or give Americans more to worry about and will discus this with our publisher.

Manisha

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 1:31 PM
To: Duffy, Chris; Beth Gissinger
Cc: Manisha Thakor; Sharon Kedar Subject:
RE: Adams Media, F+W Media II, correction, digital form

I purchased a copy of the book in digital form today.  The error that you published still exists.

What is stopping you from correcting it?

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

State of New York

The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State

You state, “For Sandy Victims, Blemishes on Credit Score Can Mean Higher Costs for Home, Auto, and Business Loans, Greater Difficulty Finding Employment.”

Employers do not use credit scores.  See Item 1.

Make a retraction.

Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio 45409

[UPDATE 5/6/13: There is a link, dated 4/27, to this page from https://twitter.com/creditscoring/status/328182948165734401.]

New York City

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 11:47 AM
To: Brad Lander, councilmember, Democrat, District 39, city of New York
Subject: credit score, employers, New York City Council, Int 0857-2012

Despite my explanation to you that employers do not use credit scores, your literature is still inaccurate.

Pages on your website state: “Brooklyn City Councilman (D-39) Brad Lander talks about a proposal he’s co-sponsoring to ban the use of credit checks during hiring in New York City. Plus,Emmett[SIC] Pinkston talks about how his credit score disqualified him for a job with the Transportation Security Administration two years ago.”

Further, Mr. Pinkston said no such thing.

Make a clarification now.

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

 

Adjust the start and end times of videos in a YouTube playlist

Video website YouTube now has an advanced feature that enables users to create playlists that do not play entire videos.  You can configure the in and out points of videos that you include in a playlist, and leave the other parts out.

In other words, a viewer can watch a sequence of segments of separate videos without doing anything, as the playlist automatically jumps from video segment to video segment.  After adding a video to a playlist, the playlist creator can adjust “the start and end times.”  There is a 15 second minimum length for each segment.

Here is an example of this function.  Employers do not use credit scores because they cannot even get them.  However, that fact doesn’t stop anybody from flap-yapping scary misinformation.  Today, there are 7 videos in this playlist.  It jumps right to the place in the video that is relevant, plays only the few seconds that are relevant, then jumps to the same in the next video.  Watch below, on this website, or watch on YouTube.com to see the videos play on the individual pages of the creators.  The creators of those videos are out of control and should take responsibility for their errors.  See the messages to some of them elsewhere on this website.

This situation has existed for years.  It is pathetic.

Acknowledgement

Here is a list of steps to attempt to get the attention of people who misinform citizens.

1. Email
2. Social media message
3. Postcard
4. Letter
5. Certified letter, return reciept requested
6. Visit, in-person, whistle stop

Further steps (if necessary) might include cash, merciless berating and singing telegrams.

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 2:50 PM
To: José Quiñonez, executive director, Mission Asset Fund, and chairperson, Consumer Advisory Board, U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Subject: The right thing

You wrote: “Experian, a major credit reporting agencies[SIC], estimates that 66 million Americans are unscoreable[SIC]—they do not have enough credit history to generate a credit score. And without a credit score, they can’t get loans to buy cars, start businesses, get mortgages, rent apartments, or even get jobs.”

However, Experian also states, “Employers never get a credit score.”

So, where did you get the idea that employers use credit scores?

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

Greece

Earlier this month, credit score company Fair Isaac promoted a social media message by a woman in Greece who claims, inaccurately, that employers use credit scores.

Employers do not use credit scores.

In her story, which is dated 2010, the writer states, inaccurately:

One area which may be controversial for a fico score to be considered is when they are used by potential employers. Some positions are dependent on a good score, and not measuring up could end up costing you the job you want. Again they are used to assess your reliability and can indicate how responsible you are.

In 2010 news agency Reuters furthered the employers-use-credit-scores myth when it interviewed the Fair Isaac CEO and reported, “FICO officially frowns on the fact that employers, landlords, and the like obtain access to individuals’ credit scores and use those scores as a proxy for that person’s general moral upstandingness.”

Prior to that article, regarding its information about credit scores and employment, Fair Isaac responded to creditscoring.com that it used “anecdotal information gleaned from public sources such as published articles.”

Reuters has not made a correction.

Revolution Capital Group, LLC and the Tampa Tribune

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2013 11:01 AM
To: Robert Loring, founder and managing partner, Revolution Capital Group, LLC; William Barker, publisher, Tampa Tribune; William Barker, publisher, Tampa Tribune (2)
Cc: Chris Ingram, president and founder, 411 Communications; Nancy C. Detert, chair, Committee on Commerce and Tourism, Florida Senate; Regan McCarthy, senior producer/assignment editor, WFSU-FM/ Florida Public Radio
Subject: RE: Florida Senate Committee on Commerce and Tourism, Revolution Capital Group

See this message and your response at https://blog.creditscoring.com/?p=4630 and https://blog.creditscoring.com/?tag=florida.

You published, “So the Legislature is here to save the day because Detert has apparently deduced that people are unemployed because they can’t get a job because of the bad economy, which caused them to pay their J.C. Penney bill late, which caused them to get a lower credit score, which employers are using to deny them jobs they would otherwise be hired for.”

Employers do not use credit scores.

Your policy is to correct all errors of fact.

—
Greg Fisher
The Credit Scoring Site
creditscoring.com
PO Box 342
Dayton, Ohio  45409-0342

[email to WFSU attached]