Author: Greg Fisher

Blended credit score name game

Equifax Experts (aka “I”)
EFX Moderator, EM
Diane Moogalian, vice president of operations, Equifax Personal Solutions
Richard F. Smith, chairman and CEO
Equifax
Atlanta, Georgia

Equifax Experts, you wrote

I usually get questions about differences in credit scores when a consumer is checking his or her credit report to make a big purchase—like a car—or to apply for a mortgage.

There are different credit score models available to lenders. Some use industry-weighted scores, and others use blended scores from all three CRAs. The lender determines which score model it prefers.

EFX Moderator, EM, you wrote

There are different credit score models available to lenders for things like mortgages and car loans. The lender determines if it prefers an industry-weighted score or a blended score from all three credit reporting agencies.

What is the name of a person or organization who provides “blended scores from all three CRAs”?  What are the names of those scores (in your expert opinion)?

What are your names?

Drop everything and answer those questions today.

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

[SEE https://www.facebook.com/Equifax#!/Equifax/posts/10150977741444015?comment_id=26550986&offset=0&total_comments=1]

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

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:

 

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

 

Trend

To: Howard Marks, billionaire

Your website states: “About 25.5% of consumers — or 43.4 million people — had credit scores below 600 in April, according to FICO Inc. Historically, only about 15% of consumers — or 25.5 million — have had scores below that level, FICO said.”

You are mistaken.

A trend illustrated by credit score company Fair Isaac (FICO) indicates this, from 2005 through 2011:

23.6 – 23.3 – 23.8 – 24.1 – 25.1 – 25.5 – 24.7

A June, 2011 report by an organization named Demos cites your article.

What is the name of the person at Fair Isaac who was the source for those statistics?  If you refer to written information, what are the names of those documents, and who provided them?

What is your corrections policy?

 

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.

Newspaper monetization

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 11:39 AM
To: Strange Logic North America
Subject: Chronicle of a myth

You further a myth by writing, “To an employer, a bad credit score may be seen as a lack of responsibility or poor decision making skills and cause them to put up a stop sign for hiring.”

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle runs advertisements on that page containing that falsehood.

Name one employer who has ever used a credit score.  If you cannot, tell me what you are going to do to counteract the myth that you perpetuated.

What is your name?

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

PS. Extra points for promptness.  Act now.

 

Senior Vice President

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 9:52 AM
To: Jerry Healey, owner and publisher, Colorado Community Media
Cc: Todd Hauer, senior vice president, wealth advisor, Morgan Stanley
Subject: credit score, credit utilization definition

You published this about one of the five categories of data in the FICO credit score formula:

Credit utilization. Credit utilization is defined as the total debt you have divided by the total available credit that is available to you. High credit utilization can be a warning sign of credit risk.

Fair Isaac does not title the second category with those words.  It uses “Amounts owed,” and that category contains factors that have nothing to do with the proportion of balances to credit limits.

I noticed your article in a news search.  It is in the top ten results, alongside articles from Yahoo! News and Fox Business.

Who “defined” credit utilization?

What is your correction policy?

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

Editorial distribution

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 8:33 AM
To: Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., publisher, New York Times
Subject: credit score, distribution, New York Times

See this message and your response at https://blog.creditscoring.com/?p=4723.

In an editorial, you published, “But the proportion of people with poor ratings — credit scores under 600 — has grown from about 15 percent in the years before the recession to about 25 percent in 2011.”

According to Fair Isaac, in its FICO 8 credit score model, from 2005 to 2011, the percentage of those under 600 [alternate link, added 2014-02-13] was never lower than 23.

What is the name of the person who wrote that editorial?

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