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Will Your Credit Report Disqualify You For a Job?
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."
The whole idea behind credit reports being used for anything other than whether or not you should be extended credit leaves me sickened.
In fact, if you get paid in arrears, or if you put anything on expenses, then it's you who is lending to your employer. So need to do the credit check on them!
Hell, there is something far more sinister than that. Some of those marks on your credit report can be *disputes*. Honest to God disputes. Errors even.
I can't understand how credit reports are even legal. I checked a few years back and the policies of one of the credit agencies was basically this.... you could make a *single* negative mark against a credit report electronically. Positive Marks? Minimum ONE THOUSAND AT A TIME.
The whole system is violation of due process, and The Constitution. It allows corporations to exact punishment against you, threaten you, coerce you, etc. all outside of a courtroom. Arbitration is not even involved. Just an electronic transaction in a database. All of it with a difference in the levels of sophistication, power, influence, etc. between consumers and companies.
The TSA has a policy where they will threaten their workers if they have bad credit. That's farking duress. I know personally of several employees who paid of Sprint cell phone scams (cell phone bills for service that never existed. Google it) for $100-$200 out of FEAR. Not fear of those scam creditors, fear of the TSA canning their asses over a couple hundred bucks. I should post the letters on WikiLeaks. Full of very threatening language and when they list the options, *nowhere* is there an option that you just can't afford to pay the amount owed. They certainly make it sound like if you can't get the collection agency to agree to something, anything, then you are at risk for losing your job.
The threat of being fired, interests rates going up, not being able to afford ever increasing lines of credit needed to just keep your family above water, all contribute to a very real mechanism in which these corporations can control you. Most people will be afraid and take the path of least resistance, hence the control realized.
This is just the next evolutionary step in the system. The corporations and credit agencies will create a system where they can *control* you without ever spending any resources hiring law firms and going to court.
The Constitution was just a speed bump.
Who is most likely to steal from you: The worker who owes 20k dollars in credit card debt and is barely keeping his head above water, or the worker who has a million dollar home and a penchant for finding profit everywhere?
I've found that a lot of people who are in poor financial condition are so because they're weirdly principled about it. They don't feel like they could go for higher salaries, because that would be wrong. They don't feel right about charging for the things that they do. They have specific hangups about money in weird ways, one of which frequently is "money is bad, and getting money is bad. I should just put my nose to the grindstone and everything will be OK."
Whereas a lot of the people I know who do have a lot of money, do so because they're unscrupulous bastards. They know how to cut corners, squeeze full advantage out of situations, and pull the wallet right out of your pants while smiling and making you feel like one of the family. I like the ones that I know, but I also know better than to sign anything around them.
I think it's fair to say that in this case, a Credit Score is not a good indicator of which type of employee will take advantage of "edge opportunities" in your organization. And in that light, it merely discriminates against the kind of suckers, err, "hardworking employees" that you probably do want in your company.
The ______ Agenda
How about just paying for something with money you actually own in stead of using credit for everything? It's pretty hard getting screwed like that and it seems to work in the rest of the world...
Greetings and salutations...
Let me address this...I have spent MOST of my life paying cash for my purchases. Know what that has done for me? Made it IMPOSSIBLE to get a credit card of my own, because I don't show up in the credit reporting agency database. It is nearly impossible to get a loan, and, I get a lot of strange looks when I buy large ticket items. Apparently, the picture of reality in MOST folks minds here in America is that anyone who pays cash for something must be a drug dealer, trying to launder some money.
All right...before anyone else points it out, I COULD get a "secured" credit card, by depositing the amount of cash that I wanted "credit" on. However, how does that differ from a Debit Card? In my mind, not at all. So...after 40 or so years of paying cash for everything, I am forced to get someone else to get a credit card FOR me, under THEIR account. Does that make sense?
Pleasant Dreams.
Dave Mundt
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
Security Clearances are getting yanked over poor credit these days, because someone with a poor credit background allegedly would have a motive for selling secrets solely so that they could pay off their debts. There was a huge story a few years back about a janitor who had been at one facility and had a clearance for decades lost his job and clearance because his credit score went down. (I'll have to search around and see if I can find it.) I know some great responsible people (now) who can't get a clearance because of some stupid credit card bill from their wild youth days.
My guess is that the TSA is checking the credit of their employees periodically and threatening to yank their clearances, which would also yank their jobs. Maybe they should be firing the ones who steal stuff from my suitcase instead..... oh wait, they have no way of knowing who that actually was.
Dumb.
--Insert catchy