Will Your Credit Report Disqualify You For a Job? 513
coondoggie writes "Two companies that fired workers and rejected job applicants based on background checks, without informing those people of their rights, have settled with the FTC for $77,000 in civil penalties. Most experts we talked to think this case is just the tip of the iceberg. The companies — Quality Terminal Services and Rail Terminal Services — were charged with violating provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires employers to get permission to look at individual credit reports. If you don't get a job because of information in your report, the employer must show you the report and tell you how to get a copy from the consumer reporting company. There is no charge for the report if you request it within 60 days of getting notice that you did not get a job."
Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, unless you work directly with cash or are in a position where fraud would be easy, employers have no right to that information.
Shit happens in peoples lives leaving them in precarious positions and things dont get paid on time. Having employers deny applicants based on their credit could put people in a downward financial spiral.
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm vaguely appalled (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole idea behind credit reports being used for anything other than whether or not you should be extended credit leaves me sickened. I've known too many hard working people who've had tough times for legitimate reasons who have been horribly screwed by this crap. Even the government mandated free credit reports are kind of bizarre, I had to forcibly tell these scum to cancel an account at one of the "bureaus" three times over the phone for an apparently ongoing reporting service that I didn't have a way to op out of and I still didn't get all the charges back.
Re:In some positions it makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
As a former employee of a notable product safety testing company, I understand this complaint completely. However, I believe the potential for honest, hard working people to be unjustly denied a position outweighs the benefits.
Unless someone is in a managerial position or deals with money directly(credit card processors for instance), employers have no right to my credit information. Given how notoriously difficult it is to clean up a credit report, its unfair.
Re:Dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)
4) Does the person have the legal skills to get false information off their credit report?
Identity theft is popular these days, and it can happen even if you make no mistakes. For example, someone might steal a bank worker's laptop.
Re:It's nothing new... (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see. An investment firm is refusing to invest in you because you wasted money on parking tickets instead of investing a little and gotten a parking space.
2001 wasn't 1998, you know.
Re:It makes *some* sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Your house cought on fire
2) Health problems prevented you from working
3) Some script kiddie generated your credit card number and charged you his new PS3 and a ton of porn.
4) Any of those things happened some time ago, but your bad credit record has prevented you from working since
Re:It's nothing new... (Score:2, Insightful)
The tickets were from the '90s, and the firm that has employed me for the last six years has ~$3B under investment (including some from Allen personally).
Credit reports are a stupid way to evaluate a worker, especially a programmer.
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of what companies do makes sense to no one but them. A company is not a single entity, even, but a whole group of idiots with different priorities and different ideas of how to do things, who probably don't talk with each other all that often, and even less often actually agree.
A previous employer shipped their entire business, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of electronics equipment, all over the world in reusable plastic boxes with the companies name on them, sealed with velcro. Every time, at least a half a dozen people who were not their employees handled the boxes and had access to everything in them. They still did credit checks on potential employees.
In the IT industry especially, companies are fine with treating local employees like criminals, but then are more than willing to outsource essential work to god-knows-who in skeezy third-world countries.
Not trusting random people on the street is one thing. But not trusting employees is the sign of a ridiculous, horrible company.
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's what you're trying to manage, then I daresay you should find direct evidence in support of people's ability to manage regular tasks and survive tight situations.
Credit is a false indicator in this regard. I know people who have amazing credit scores, but I wouldn't trust them to manage a paper sack. Similarly, I know a lot of people who have a strangely wreckless approach to their personal lives, but whose professional work is shockingly squeaky-clean. It is perhaps because they are so dilligent about their professional work that their brain takes a vacation at home.
And, of course, credit can / is usually wrecked by things outside of the control of the person. Health issues, job losses, divorce, moving, and identity theft all ruin credit, and can frequently do so without the end user knowing about it. Personally, my credit was ruined for YEARS without my knowing it, simply because my college roommate had failed to pay the last bill on electricity before moving out. The bill was for 16 dollars, which was too small to actually notify me that anything was still owed, but not too small that it wasn't listed as a default in my credit score. Now that I'm of more firm financial footing, my credit is still terrible. Why? Because I belive borrowing is a symptom of a failure to properly financially plan, which has the side effect that my available credit is low and my credit repayment history is thin.
Credit Score is a tool specifically for financial companies to decide if they want to loan you money. You'll notice that paying your bill in full each month is actually counted as a negative against your credit score, as does shopping around for loans (generating lots of inquiries), consolidating debt, closing unused credit cards, and other things which I personally consider highly fiscally responsible. Again, this is because your FICO is not a measurement of your financial accumen, but rather your potential profitability to moneylenders. Let's keep it as a tool for that, shall we?
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or they can be complete bullshit.
My Experian report (which has a high score) has me working for Boeing since I was 10 years old. They apparently confused it with my father, but even after several letters pointing out the mathematical improbability of their information being accurate, it's still there.
It's a shame it isn't true. I could have been retired for years.
Credit reports are misued (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with credit rating is not that it exists, or that it lacks sufficient predictive value for creditworthiness. It's that over the last few decades, credit rating has increasingly become a proxy for overall responsibility and our legal system has upheld its widespread misuse. Credit score is now a prerequisite for nearly everything that has to do with money. Your insurance premiums are a function of your credit score. Your ability to secure a job is dependent on your credit score. Whether a landlord will rent to you depends on your credit score. Just about anyone these days asks you for permission to peek at your score--even your mobile phone provider.
Credit rating was never meant to be used in this way. And yet, everyone does it because it works, and nobody is willing to stand up to it. The future of credit rating is that it will begin to use increasingly sophisticated methods to quantify how much risk you present to a lender, and on the flip side of the coin, it will be used to determine whether you can do ANYTHING. What jobs you are allowed to hold, which people you will be allowed to socialize with, what goods and services you are allowed to buy, which schools you will be allowed to attend, how many children you will be allowed to have, and where and when you will be able to travel.
Creditworthiness is the new class system. What else did anybody expect in a capitalist, consumer-driven society? This is merely the logical conclusion of a set of conditions on a system. Your entire worth as an individual will be quantified and reduced to a single number, and you will be completely under the control of powerful financial entities that sees society as a source of passive income.
The dirty little secret is that credit rating is a system imposed by the rich elite onto the working class. The rich do not have credit, because they have no need for it. Everything they could want, they simply buy. And they buy it with money that the working class earns as a result of real work, but gets funneled to them through--guess what--credit.
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
You may start with a lower score than a rich person, but your score will only go bad if you do something irresponsible, like buying something on credit which you don't pay back.
Like, for example, a couple of weeks in the hospital?
Re:Credit reports are misued (Score:1, Insightful)
The dirty little secret is that credit rating is a system imposed by the rich elite onto the working class. The rich do not have credit, because they have no need for it. Everything they could want, they simply buy. And they buy it with money that the working class earns as a result of real work, but gets funneled to them through--guess what--credit.
Wow. A rare glimpse into the minds of the radical left. They have seen the enemy, and he is ... Scrooge McDuck.
News flash for ya, kid. Anybody who gets anywhere in this world does so because of credit. That goes for the rich as well as the poor. The fact that the poor have less access to credit is what separates them from the rich, not their lack of cash. Or did you really think rich people kept all their money in their mattresses and paid their Rolls-Royce dealers in gold bars? Funny thing... last time I walked down Wall Street I didn't see so much as one guy wearing a top hat and a monocle... guess they must have all been at home, swimming in their Olympic-sized pools full of doubloons.
I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I have great credit. I have great credit mostly because I have been responsible with my money. Credit allows me to live comfortably, but more importantly, it gives me access to opportunities. When I need to buy a new computer because it will increase my earning potential at my business, I'm not going to put it on layaway. I'm going to buy it today, start using it tomorrow, and pay for it later, with the increased profits that I earn by using it. And that's just part of the beauty of credit. When unexpected expenses show up, paying for them with credit allows me to manage my cash flow. The same is true for my regular bills, too. When I'm burnt out and need to go on vacation, I can do it this year, right now, and not worry about scrimping and saving through the winter so I'll have enough cash by next summer. And that one time, when someone somehow got hold of my credit information and charged $800 to my card, I just called up the credit card company and asked them to remove the charge -- which they did, and the only question they asked was whether there were any other charges I thought should be removed.
That's the reality of credit for a middle-class single dude like me. Truth to tell, I doubt this country even had a real middle class before credit became easily and widely available. Based on my experience, all that class-warfare bullshit sounds like the ravings of a 17-year-old. Those people who tell you credit ruined their lives and kept them poor? Bullshit. Spending all their money is what kept those people poor. Credit is what could have helped them stop being poor ... if they knew what to do with it.
Re:Dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)
What many people perceive as intense financial pressure due to a poor economy are what the poor feel whether the economy is good or bad.
There are several issues with the credit system and the way people respond to it. To some degree people who fail to pay off a debt may simply be in a state of rebellion. That is not unlike many black youth who are involved in crime as a response to a system that they feel is against them.
I am surprised in many ways that the credit system is allowed to exist as Judeo-Christian culture has a considerable history of a total ban on interest in any form.
Re:Credit reports are misused (Score:5, Insightful)
You misunderstand the point I have made.
The problem is not simply that the working class must borrow from the rich. It is not that in a capitalist society, the working class, by definition, requires others to lend them money to make purchases on goods and services that they cannot buy outright. The problem is that there is no counteracting force--that is to say, the rich have all the power to rewrite the rules of the game as they see fit, and thus there is no real accountability for their misdeeds.
I find it curious that you believe that my statement was anti-capitalist. To the contrary, if you apply my statement to the current economic crisis which was in no small part due to the willful underwriting of bad risks, you will clearly see that the problem is that the financial institutions have become so large and influential that the government bailed them out to prevent a complete collapse of the economy. Had the system been truly capitalist, these lenders would have had to write down their losses, rather than being rewarded by taxpayers for making bets they knew were unwise.
Capitalism when times are good and socialism when times are bad is neither capitalism nor socialism. It's simply robbery.
The credit rating problem is only one facet of the larger issue, which is that our economic system is based upon a belief that it is possible to create a sufficiently accurate quantitative model of risk such that one can "almost always" trust it. When viewed in this larger context, it becomes obvious that the trend towards more data collection, more intrusion into consumer behaviors, is the logical consequence of this flawed belief. It is this idea that the more you know about something, the more predictive you can be--but the fundamental truth remains that there is no way to eliminate risk entirely.
The working class are simultaneously victims and perpetrators of this system based upon flawed assumptions, as are the rich. But I am more inclined to blame the rich because they are the ones who have historically been in control, both financially and politically.
The lending of money, in of itself, is not a bad thing. But when mixed with an easily cowed, manipulated, and self-entitled public that is told from infancy that "you can do anything if you just try hard enough" and "you are special and deserve everything," it becomes a problem. But in whose interest is it to make a credit-based, consumer economy the foundation of the American financial system in the first place? Who do you blame--the ones who are too stupid to behave responsibly, or the ones who encourage them to be stupid in the first place, because it makes them easy to control and profit off them?
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did you post this as AC? I'll put my name to it, if you won't - Evilandi is making a theoretical proposal, then insisting only other people should be judged by scientific standards. His actions are cowardly and abusive. ColdWetDog spoke truth to power (Not that evilandi necessarily has any power, but he's parroting what powerful social structures have told us all). So why not put your name behind that assessment. If you won't, I will.
Re:Dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why I never put my first wife on the mortgage, let alone the bank account, and why she left with only her clothes and a car that her adulterous lover had to sell for her a month later.
Seriously, though, a joint account should only be used as an intermediate dropping-off point for small amounts of money. Anyone who has joint credit cards or joint bank accounts with large amounts of money, or large overdraft facilities, clearly hasn't seen the divorce rates recently.
I really feel for you. On the plus side, they don't all get away with it. It was quite funny spotting my ex driving a total POS clapped-out 2-seater a couple of months later. Silly girl.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dumb. (Score:1, Insightful)
Naive and utter BS. "Credit scores are a good indicator of responsible attitudes." Personally I have a shitty score because I save my money, don't have a credit card, don't have a car loan, I'm single, make a lot of money, yet somehow that's bad. You know, an unknown quantity. That's why I will never again by anything on credit, ever.
Re:Credit reports are misued (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultra responsible folks are screwed. (Score:1, Insightful)
I have one - what about the people who have no credit history? They're ultra responsible, right?
The can't get any loans or any jobs that require a credit history.
Having no credit history is worse than having bad credit. Is that a fucked up system or what? Things that require a credit rating: credit cards: can't fly, rent a hotel room, or rent a car without one; many jobs; utilities; cell phones; student loans; car loans (yeah, just try and live without a car in the US) - there's more but I can't remember them.
In other words, if you want a life, you have to have a credit history and that means you have to be in debt.
Our system has evolved into making us take on debt. We're really fucked up in this country.
Re:It's nothing new... (Score:4, Insightful)
I worked in Downtown Seattle for 14 years, ending a few months ago. Never got a parking ticket. Take the bus, or a bike, Señor Mantecapo.
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than that.
Credit is little more than a way to keep people working for low wages in crappy jobs. The entire credit system is little more than legalized slavery. We can see how the rise of the credit industry has coincided with a slow degradation of real income for workers.
Banks and corporations are working hand in hand to make sure as many people are underwater as possible. Why else would your credit score go down when you cancel a credit card, and also go down when you get a new credit card?
Re:Dumb. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is purely designed as a way to oppress the lower class. There is no other use for it in it's present form.
Sorry we cant hire you, your Credit score is under 670.
we have to drop your car insurance or triple the price, your credit score dipped below 650.
Sorry sir, your medical coverage has expired, because you lost your job, your credit score went below 620 and we cant cover you.
Honestly, It's one of the most nefarious things done in America today and the Government encourages it.
Also your credit report is the most inaccurate "report" on you. most have lots of glaring errors that take a LOT of energy and time on your part to remove.
Me? I'm sitting here with the rare high score of over 720, but if I lose my job that will spiral down. you cant keep a high credit score if you cant pay your bills.
Unemployed without insurance and have a child hurt, spouse hurt, or even yourself = your credit score slamming down to below 600 within 3 months. Nothing like owing $30,000 or more in medical bills to cause that.
It is DESIGNED to punish the poor or those that lose their job. It's being set up to "encourage" you to take all the crap they dish out at work so you dont lose that job and get blackballed.
Re:Credit reports are misued (Score:3, Insightful)
Not PERSONAL credit. Their corporations borrow the money, so irresponsibility on their part never affects them personally -- even if all their companies just went Chapter 7.
Re:Dumb. (Score:1, Insightful)
If I read correctly this thread, in the US your employer can legally get information on your credit and you are almost always expected to have a credit card (which can be traced by a private party).
Yet some people see a National ID system as the biggest bigbrother-like evil?
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you die. Really. I can't say it enough.
Re:Dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)
Um, what? You agree that inability to pay shouldn't prevent someone from receiving treatment, but then say that person should have to pay for it. Which is it? Either someone that can't afford treatment doesn't get it, or someone else (the rest of us) pays for it. The person receiving the treatment can't pay for it, that's the entire predicate.
I wonder if any employers use credit reports... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dumb. (Score:1, Insightful)
I'll offer a good example of how ridiculous this is.
I went through a tortous divorce where my ex's attorney filed a motion preventing me from paying my bills for over three months claiming I was using "martial assets" to do this when my ex hadn't worked or generated any income in over five years, vacated the house a year prior and was employed making great money as a teacher and working on her *second* Masters degree, and I paying our *joint* martial debts.
This is what can only described as legal financial terrorism.
The court inexplicabily granted this motion which completely destroyed my credit ratings as pleas to the judge by my attorney fell on deaf ears.
Now I'm being harassed again claiming I'm falling behind in payments to my ex when I can't get a job because everyone is jaded is doing background checks and what was done to me is making me all but unemployable as an out of work 45-year old white male executive.
So why am I being denied the right to get back on my feet by prospective employers given that I have an outstanding employment history otherwise?
And how did my ex gain from any of this when now her payments are impacted by what her attorney did t me and the courts allowed?
Re:It makes *some* sense (Score:1, Insightful)
Then honestly you know strange people.
It seems a quite lot of you think that most bankruptcies are just tough luck. From my experience, living in the "ghetto" of north-side Minneapolis and the like, the people worst off are usually that way for a reason. As in they buy things they can't afford. They just love to buy things, but never school supplies for their kids interestingly enough. I remember back in highschool, I had a surreal conversation with someone about how he couldn't buy the required graphing calculator. It was too expensive! And of course he was going to go spend a couple hundred dollars on clothes that weekend...
Granted I come from a responsible extended family, so none of us are in debt, and we have a huge safety net because of this, so we are lucky we will never live on the streets because of bad luck.
You can, but only by not using it (Score:3, Insightful)
If you use credit, and that means getting a loan in almost any form, having a credit card, etc, you will have a credit report. What happens is the companies who loan you money or extend you a line of credit report your payment history to the three credit reporting agencies. The information reported is pretty basic, more or less all they say is if you pay on time or not. These companies then keep a file of your info.
So if you never use credit, you won't have a credit history. However, that doesn't really help you. The reason is that having no credit is usually categorized as high risk. Statistically speaking, people with no credit later in life (everyone has no credit early in life) are a credit risk.
That is what the whole thing was designed for: Evaluation of financial risk. The question every lender has is "If I loan this guy money, how likely is it I'll get paid back?" Turns out evaluating their past history is a real good indicator. In terms of the FICO scores, which is the calculation done on your history that most people think of when they think of a credit check, it neatly maps. The lower your FICO score, the higher your risk of default. You can have a look at Prosper's data for some insight in to this. Their ratings don't map to credit scores precisely, but it is similar (http://www.prosper.com/invest/performance.aspx). Note that in the AA category they have about 1% charge offs, meaning loans that defaulted. For people who have no credit it is over 60%.
Thus why it is used to decide if a company wishes to make you a loan, and what rate they wish to charge if they do. If you are very low risk, you get a good rate, if you are high risk, you get a high rate. The more likely you are to default on the debt, the more interest they want to make it worth their while.
There is really no reason to try to avoid having a credit history. All it will do is put you in a high risk category. That doesn't mean you have to go in to debt, just that you need to have credit. People online confuse that a LOT. Having good credit means that you use your credit reasonably. Having credit cards and not using them at all gives you good credit. Won't give you the max score, but it'll be good. Using cards and paying them in full each month gives you good credit. It is NOT a rating of debt, it is a rating of risk. If you have credit, don't make much use of it, and thus always pay it on time, you are a low risk. Shows lenders that you are able to manage your credit. That's what they are interested in.
So you are perfectly free to never go in to debt (though that's difficult if you want to buy a house) and still have good credit. You'll only have bad credit if you misuse it.
Now as it applies to jobs, well it is rather stupid that they check it. As I said, credit is a measure of risk of repayment of loans, nothing else. Doesn't show if you are a trustworthy person, doesn't show if you will do your job well, etc. As such it isn't something employers should be using, it isn't giving them any relevant information. It has a very narrow application.
However, in the field for which it was designed, it works well. You find out someone's credit score, and their debt-to-income ratio, and weigh that against teh amount and type of loan you are making, you have a real good idea how likely they are to repay you.
Re:Credit reports are just part of it.... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, it is complete bullshit when deciding whether this man should manage your email server.
I think a better comparison would have been "deciding whether this man should clean the toilets in the bathroom". Managing an email server would actually give you access to quite a bit of important information.
Re:Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
giant corporations (Score:2, Insightful)
distopian future (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ [imdb.com]
In our large, socially disconnected and hurry up society, using a universal method like a credit report as a background check is a great way to mitigate risk.
we have become horribly risk averse. when the only thing being measured is number of failures, the bureaucracy will do everything possible to remove the risk of failure. Thus, if you have the wrong DNA, or the wrong credit number, you are not worth the risk.
No matter what you say.
gak out
Re:Dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)
I will be modded down for this, but you post was unfair. "The Christians..." should be SOME religious fanatics.
You post is just like saying all Muslims are terrorists, to busy hating westerners and Jews rather than following the real teachings of there holy books. But this is just not true.
How did this get modded insightful? The definition of insight from dictionary.com
-Noun
1. an instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, esp. through intuitive understanding