April, 2013 | The Credit Score Blog

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:

Watch live streaming video from newyorkstateofficeofthegovernor at livestream.com

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