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

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Colorado SB13-018

Employers do not use credit scores.  They cannot even get them.

However, the website of Colorado State Senate Majority Leader Morgan Carroll states, as part of her first priority for the 2013 legislative session, “Efforts to ‘Buy Local’ will strengthen our local economy and addressing the misuse of credit scores in hiring practices will help many unemployed people get back to work.”

There is no misuse, of course, because there is no use, at all.

On April 19, Colorado’s governor signed Senate Bill 13-018, making it law.

Senator Carroll‘s website also states, inaccurately, “60% of employers are now using credit scores as part of their hiring decisions. (Discrediting America 2011).”

That refers to a study by an organization named Demos, whose representative testified (with impressive detail) in Connecticut: “And it really just depends on the method through which the employer gets their credit scores. A lot of times they come bundled with background checks, for example, and that’s part of the reason for the proliferation.”

The legislation under consideration in Connecticut that day became law, too.

Now, in New York:

 

Some have no credit score

In a commentary for UPI, Morgan Strong wrote

There is another thing far more certain than mere superstition that awaits the  newborn. There is a Social Security number and a credit rating. Beginning with  our squalling breech of the womb, we are marked by this obscenity. This marking,  indelible yet unseen, our credit score, will continue throughout our lives and  in effect compel us to make the choice of the path we are to follow.

That is inaccurate.  Consumer reporting agency files are not recorded and retained on the newborn.  If there is no information on a consumer, then there is no credit score.  According to the state of New York Department of State, Division of Consumer Protection, “The credit agencies do not knowingly keep credit files on minors.”