August, 2013 | The Credit Score Blog

OCC Charter No. 1316

From: Greg Fisher
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 1:14 PM
To: William S. Demchak, president and CEO, PNC Financial Services Group (via P. McMahon)
Subject: credit score, employers, OCC Charter No. 1316

See this message and your response at https://blog.creditscoring.com/?p=5343.

At https://twitter.com/PNCNews/status/372705152752705536, you wrote, “Who looks at your #creditscore? Not just lenders, but employers, landlords, even mobile phone companies. #PNC #AchievementSessions.”

Employers don’t use credit scores. I looked into it.

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

AOL’s false information under a new name

As the chairman and CEO of AOL, Tim Armstrong (who, actually, thinks he is Donald Trump) is in charge of a lot of stuff.

Sometime between June, 2011 and today, he rejiggered it, and created a dead link in the process.

How does he expect anybody to keep track of his errors?

Here are some more.

He published, “Additionally, employers must notify the job seeker if their credit score was the reason they were not hired” (as if that is possible in the known universe–employers do not use credit scores).

Elsewhere in in his realm (of non-reality): “Ninety percent of banks use credit scores when they determine finance charges such as interest rates on mortgages and other loans. But it doesn’t stop there — potential employers, insurance companies, landlords, and a host of others use these scores as well.”

Here’s another doozy in the Huffington Post. Obliviously, Armstrong let some guy write, “Last fall, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Boehner described changes like the chained CPI and more means-testing of premiums for affluent Medicare beneficiaries as (in McConnell’s words) “the kinds of things that would get Republicans interested in new revenue.”

Senator McConnell–while a fine man–is not in the majority party.

But, this is the best: “House Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has an ingenious plan to save us: Repeal Obamacare!”

Wrong party, wrong body.

Mr. Armstrong, meet Mr. Case.

Encounter with billionaire about credit score myth

[PREVIOUS EMAIL]

From: Gilbert, Dan
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 10:53 AM
To: Quilty, David; Albery, Todd
Cc: ‘greg@creditscoring.com’
Subject: Fw: Your horrible, recurring errors

Todd and David,

I truly cannot follow this guy’s point below.

Maybe it got lost through all of the bitterness and anger in his email, but as always, I know you guys will try to get to the bottom of it and understand the feedback to determine if there is a change that needs to take place.

Please keep me posted.

Thank you.
Dan G.

[by “below,” Gilbert refers to previous email]

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 12:17 PM
To: Dan Gilbert, Fathead
Subject: RE: Your horrible, recurring errors, follow

Employers do not use credit scores, but your website said (before the error disappeared (“score” is even gone from its headline)), again, that they do.

What don’t you understand about that?

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

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2013 1:02 PM
To: Todd Albery, Leader of the Webolution, Quizzle LLC
Cc: Dan Gilbert, Fathead; David Quilty, senior editor, Quizzle LLC
Subject: RE: Your horrible, recurring errors, follow II

Hello, Skippy.

Your error disappeared! Apparently, lax control is the way to become a billionaire.

I’m still waiting for your boss to reply. In the meantime, take a look at this. quickenloans.com states, “Don’t forget: Many employers also check credit scores, especially when you’re in the hiring process.”

Wrong.

Also, some guy wrote (and, Mr. Gilbert left on his website for three years), “If you recognize that maintaining a good credit score is a necessary evil in today’s society because insurers, employers and lenders check scores when making offers, you might consider damage to your credit score a negative consequence of walking away from a mortgage.”

Wrong again.

On that guy’s website, you find the reliability meme, as in: “You can complain about this all that you want, but your whining won’t stop from potential employers from checking out your credit score. The justification that I heard is that an employer will want to see if you’re reliable.”

That was “posted” (as the mommy bloggers say) by yet another guy who tells young people, “Your future employers WILL look at your credit score.”

Elsewhere, that guy gushes: “If you want to build your [CENSORED] for ‘credit score’ or ‘debt management’ than[SIC] just say so! Ask me for my advertising rates and I’m sure that we could work something out.”

Yikes.

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

Dan Gilbert, Fathead

From: Greg Fisher [mailto:greg@creditscoring.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 10:45 AM
To: David Quilty, senior editor, Quizzle LLC
Cc: Dan Gilbert, Fathead
Subject: Your horrible, recurring errors

You don’t have to say it—I know: I’m overplaying my hand. But I’m going to make another prediction because you are being Cavalier.

Your website states, “Now when prospective employers vet job candidates, there are two things they’ll likely check on to see if you’d be a responsible employee: 1) your references, and 2) your credit score.”

(I won’t say that you should have used the Comic Sans font because this is not funny.)

That claim is not true. In fact, it is, flat-out, false. Look at the correction Dan Gilbert made earlier this year after I only mentioned an error on quizzle.com. The problem with that childish disappearing act is the URL: http://www.quizzle.com/blog/2012/04/employers-are-checking-credit-scores-are-you-ready/.

Whoopsie.

This time, let’s try something different.

You say that you want guest posts. Now, I don’t participate in that nonsense because it only seems like a disingenuous effort—one to juice-up search rankings for the guest and the host (I think they call it “link spam”). But because this is an Ohio thing, I’m going to make an exception to my own high-minded principles.

Here is my first post:

Employers do not use credit scores. I looked into it.

Greg Fisher, citizen

Bio: Greg Fisher is a citizen.

Your guidelines say that the post must have not been published on another website, so you will have to make an exception. But this is an extraordinary circumstance: 1) it involves your credibility, 2) it has serious consequences, and 3) I’m right and you’re wrong. Perhaps the shock of having to admit your failure by publishing that junk will stop you pipsqueaks from spreading the most persistent falsity about credit scores again.

I’m shooting 100% on predictions, and I’m making another one, Sports Fans. I predict that you will make another correction.

I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

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

[GILBERT’S PERSONAL RESPONSE]