Category: Enough to be Dangerous

Bankrate and Fox Business spread urban legend that employers use credit scores

Contact with London, New York, North Palm Beach and Austin

Also, see: 

  • CreditCards.com:
    • “Employers may look at your credit score when you’re applying for a job, and landlords look at it for prospective renters,” he (Scott Crawford, CEO and co-founder of DebtGoal.com) says.”
    • “The general statement won’t affect your FICO credit score, but employers can’t look at your FICO score anyway, says Larry Lambeth, president of Employment Screening Services, a company that provides pre-employment screenings for more than 6,000 companies in the United States and abroad.”
    • “Credit scores, on the other hand, shouldn’t ever be viewed by employers.”
  • Bankrate.com:
    • “Credit reports and credit scores show up in the background checks employers increasingly order at the time of hire or promotion.”
    • “Contrary to popular belief, employers can only see your credit report, not your credit score.”
    • “Watch this video from Creditscoring.com to see how widespread this falsehood is.”

 

From: Greg Fisher
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 12:53 AM
To: Ben Harding, press contact, Apax Partners; Peter C. Morse, chairman, Bankrate, Inc.; Thomas R. Evans, president & CEO, Bankrate, Inc.; Editors, CreditCards.com
Cc: Jodi Helmer, writer, CreditCards.com; Teri Everett, senior vice president, Corporate Affairs & Communications, News Corporation
Subject: credit score, employers, urban myth, Fox Business, CreditCards.com, 2011-10-17

You published, “For one thing, even if you’re not looking at your score, your prospective employer may.”

The consumer reporting agencies all state that they do not provide credit scores for employment purposes.  Even your own website, Bankrate.com, states, “’There’s a misconception that scores are used, and scores are not used,’ says Steven R. Katz, spokesman for Chicago-based agency TransUnion.”

Will you make a correction?

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

Credit score urban myth by the numbers

creditscoring.com

Video 1: 3021 views in 2 years
Video 2. 396 views in 6 months

The Young Turks

“Should Employers Check Credit Scores?”: 13,142 in 4 days

“The Young Turks” host said, “So, who gives a damn what their credit score is?”

The consumer reporting agencies all state that they do not provide credit scores for employment purposes.

[email to The Young Turks]

The Young Turks spread urban myth about credit scores and employers

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 4:17 PM
To: Ana Kasparian, co-host and producer, The Young Turks
Cc: Cenk Uygur, host, The Young Turks
Subject: credit score, employers, The Young Turks

You said, “They’re specifically targeting TransUnion, which is a privately owned company that gives employers access to credit scores.”

However, TransUnion stated, “There’s no such thing as a credit score in employment.”

What is your correction policy?

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

examiner.com replies regarding employers and credit scores

From: Examiner Legal 
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 11:01 AM
To: greg@creditscoring.com
Subject: [JunkMail] Re: credit score, employers, examiner.com, wallow in economic despair II

Mr. Fisher,

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.  We are currently looking into your complaint.

Please be aware that the articles and other content contributed to Examiner.com by various independent third party authors (referred to on our website as “Examiners”) are selected, written, posted and controlled solely by the authors thereof.  The Examiners are independent third parties who have selected a topic on which they wish to write, and when they deem appropriate, they contribute content to our website related to that topic.  Although the Examiners have agreed to certain standard terms and conditions regarding the content they choose to write and post on our website, the Examiners alone determine the content of the articles, including any photographs or video they may choose to include with the articles.  Because the Examiners are independent third parties, and the topics and substance of their articles are not controlled by Examiner.com, we are not responsible for, and cannot be held liable for, the content thereof.  Examiner.com does not review all of the content posted by the approximately 70,000 Examiners contributing to our website, and we had not read this article before you brought it to our attention.  However, when someone points out problems with material posted by an Examiner, we inform the applicable Examiner and request that the Examiner remedy the situation (or we pull the material from our site under certain circumstances, including if it violates our Terms of Use).

In addition, many, but not all, of the Examiners provide contact information on their profile page, which is accessible by clicking on their title.  If you have concerns about the content of an article, we encourage you contact the Examiner directly, when possible.  Again, thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Best regards,
Examiner.com

Confidentiality Notice – This message and its attachments are confidential and intended for the use of the addressee.  Any unauthorized dissemination, copying, or distribution of this communication is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete the original message and all attachments and notify the sender at the above-listed e-mail address.

[previous message]

Content farms use same article with urban myth about credit scores

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 9:52 PM
To: Philip Anschutz; Philip Anschutz
Cc: Peter G. Kreysa, owner, Ultio, LLC
Subject: RE: credit score, employers, examiner.com, wallow in economic despair II

Please reply.

You published, “The recent suit filed against a chain of Restaurants is just the latest instance where many of today’s employers are taking advantage of the current economic crisis.”

Capitalizing the word Restaurants is another error.

Do you even read an article before publishing it?

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

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Content farm urban myth about credit scores and employers

From: Greg Fisher [greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 2:28 PM
To: Philip Anschutz
Subject: credit score, employers, examiner.com, wallow in economic despair

You published these sentences:

“All over the United States, employers continually discriminate not only because of age, gender or race they now use credit scores, religion, and even being unemployed as reason enough to keep one from landing a job.”

“It wasn’t until around 2000 that credit scores were actually becoming more of an issue in terms of eligibility for securing employment.”

“So, if a person falls behind in just one utility bill for example there[SIC] credit score suffers and so does that person’s ability to secure either a better job or just to get a job.”

“All because of the employer sets the criteria for employment not really based on ones[SIC] ability, experience, or knowledge on how to actually do the job, but solely based on a credit score.”

“Until a national awareness that any form of discrimination whether it is age, sex, religion, race, a low credit score, or just being unemployed deters real economic growth by allowing employees and prospective employees the ability to have access to gain mobility up the economic ladder the United States will only continue to wallow in economic despair.”

The consumer reporting agencies do not sell credit scores for employment purposes.

What is your correction policy?

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

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Ridiculous credit score goodwill adjustment idea returns

An Unexpected Error has occurred.” – myFICO message board

It’s back (unfortunately).

TIME (indeed, with the help of Fair Isaac) helps it along.

And, a CreditCards.com story titled “8 Quick Fixes for Your Credit Score” states:

If there are problems like late or missed payments on your credit report, it can sometimes pay off to ask your card issuer for a ‘goodwill adjustment.’ This is especially true if you have good credit and you otherwise have been a model customer. Write your card issuer to ask – you may be surprised by their answer.

Writers will be writers, but here is something even more confounding. A former Fair Isaac executive and witness to Congress makes a similar suggestion on Credit.com:

Matt may try and work with the lender to see if they will delete the judgment if he satisfies it in full (this is sometimes referred to as a ‘pay for delete‘ agreement), but there are no guarantees the lender will agree to that (and there is no requirement they do so).

Try the “GW LETTER” hyperlinks on the page Goodwill adjustment – Influence: Media, lying that used to lead to myFICO message board comments about the so-called goodwill adjustment (lie). The links no longer work.

A myFICO forum contributer wants to keep it quiet about the lying:

It’s fine to have one-off success stories here and there and various contact info scattered across many posts. However, creating a single ‘database’ that broadcasts creditors’ willingness to provide GW adjustments may actually be counter-productive and discourage creditors from granting this nicety. Remember, anyone can read these message boards.

Whoops.

NASDAQ.com 1 click away from quiz containing myth spread by Kiplinger

After you read the NASDAQ.com story with the common title, “How to Improve your Credit Score,” the writer invites you to take her credit score quiz (titled with another tired cliche: “Do You Know the Score on Your Credit?”).  Then, she slams you when you give the correct answer to one of her quiz questions.

Question 2 is “A bad credit score could affect your ability to get a job.”

If you respond with the correct answer, “B. False,” a message in bold, red letters exclaims, “Sorry, wrong!”

The consumer reporting agencies all state that they do not provide credit scores for employment purposes.  The Kiplinger’s contributing editor is the same excited Today Show guest (at 5:15) in the creditscoring.com video of electronic media journalists spreading the employers-use-credit-scores myth. She’s been doing it for years.

For more about inaccurate information from NASDAQ, see https://blog.creditscoring.com/?tag=nasdaq.

credit score, TIME: FICO suggests goodwill adjustment

For a while, the idea of the “goodwill adjustment” looked like it was dead.  It is a lie by a furnisher of information to consumer reporting agencies, and flies in the face of logic, ethics and, indeed, the law, which states

The banking system is dependent upon fair and accurate credit reporting. Inaccurate credit reports directly impair the efficiency of the banking system, and unfair credit reporting methods undermine the public confidence which is essential to the continued functioning of the banking system.

Regardless of that naive federal wish, Fair Isaac, the FICO score company leads the charge with regard to the practice touted by experts, disgruntled consumers and media.

According to TIME Moneyland, (myFICO.com consumer operations manager Barry) “Paperno says you can request a ‘pay for delete’ agreement or ‘good will[SIC] adjustment’: you pay everything off in full and they remove the black mark from your report.”

Previously, TIME made a correction to one of its articles, although you would not necessarily know it.

In a day of loss of trust in bond rating agencies, the credit report goodwill adjustment baloney is a similar confusing signal in the consumer segment.  Taking the notion to the logical extreme, the consumer could withhold the last payment of an installment agreement unless the creditor agrees to remove all of the account’s history of late payments.  And why not?  Even FICO (with the help of TIME) suggests it.

You had better get on the moneywagon, too; the competition (the unethical consumer) is getting ahead.

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo

credit score, employers, Miller-McCune.com

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2011 10:16 AM
To: Michael Todd, editor, Miller-McCune.com
Subject: credit score, employers, Miller-McCune.com

See this message and your response at https://blog.creditscoring.com/?p=2460, https://blog.creditscoring.com/?tag=miller-mccune and myth.

You published, “If you’re unemployed and you’re behind on some credit card bills or you have a bad mortgage, suddenly your credit score might be another barrier to finding a new job and getting back on your feet.”

Who is your source regarding credit score use by employers?

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