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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."
There are several articles lately on all the stupid personal information that employers want to dig up on applicants:
credit report
insurance history
car type
"mode of living"
What do most of these have in common? What do they want to know? They want to know that you keep all of your money in a bank account. They want to know that your retirement is invested in the stock market. They want to know that you vote and that you have a home phone line. They want to know that you have a brand new American car. They want to know that you have credit cards and that you are in debt up to your eyeballs. They want to know that you are a typical sheep.
What does this have to do with doing a job? Absolutely nothing.
Then why do they want to know all of this? Because most companies don't actually pay their employees: their banks do. And banks want to keep their money close to them, circulating in their little system. They don't want to employ anyone who might not hand their wages right back in one way or another. They want to give jobs to people who are fully invested in their little fraud that they have going. They want good little workers who are frightened when government officials talk about the economy collapsing. They want employees who enjoy seeing the government bail out failing companies and failing banks.
They want workers who will pay 10% of their earnings in interest, 25% in taxes, 15% on food, 35% on a mortgage, 10% on consumer goods, 2% on prescription drugs, 8% on a car, and 5% on insurance. They want companies that will hire workers who do so.
And the criminals in the US government take our property and earnings from us by force so they can hand it over to these fraudsters and perpetuate their illegal rackets.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I don't understand. Why would being in state hospital cost anyone, other than the general taxpayer, money?
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Would an employer really want to employ someone who couldn't even work out how to pay their bills?
Managing your finances correctly is a good indicator of how responsible you are.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
she never told me it was going to happen
I'm seeing a lot of these types of replies, "I didn't bother to check until it was too late."
If you've got a credit agreement, it is your RESPONSIBILITY to check that the payments are being correctly received on time.
If you fail that responsibility, you may get, and will deserve, a poor credit rating. You're demonstrably not managing your finances.
That's what a credit score shows. It distinguishes those who are responsible with their finances from BOTH those who are criminally reckless AND those who are simply careless.
Stop trying to push the blame onto other people! If the credit agreement is in your name, you're responsible for MAKING SURE the payments happen in full and on time!
Even if a payment gets missed, it doesn't take much to just read the statements they send out and spot the mistake. And yes, you're responsible for making sure they know your new address, if you move house too!
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
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.
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.
That's not a problem with your credit report per say but with a mix up with your last name and social security number. That can be solved (though it has to be done repeatedly) by writing to the credit bureaus. My mother and my sister have the same first name, and due to my father's last name, they get their credit reports mixed up.
ZOMG! BIG DEAL! Not really, they simply keep an eye on it, regularly check on it, and write to the credit bureaus every time there is a mix up.
Annoying? Yes. Horrendously difficult to deal with if you act proactively and responsibly? Not really.
Also, your anecdotal case is not data, and it does not prove that it is bullshit. If they were to get separated, they'll show a correct score for you and your father. Or would it not?
Also, in the case of hiring, if you know you are applying to a job that requires a credit check (or applying for a home loan or whatever), you proactively (see that word again?)
Annoying? Yes. But that's human nature. It's full of annoying this. We just deal proactively with them whenever possible and keep going. In your case, which is extreme but real, it's always going to be there, and I'm sorry that you have to go through that. But you are an extreme case, an outlier that does not prove credit reports are bullshit. In general, they are accurate tools, a capability measure, for the individual and for those that might need to have a financial relation to him.
Even in your case, things can still be handled, should you need to, by keeping careful records of all your financial and credit statements, all your letters requesting corrections and careful cross-matching of entries in the credit reports to statements you and your father own.
For getting a home loan, it might be a bitch, for a company requiring a credit check, it would be a no brainer to see the particulars of your case.
You shouldn't be surprised. The Christians are too busy fighting to keep evolution out of schools and gays out of wedding chapels to actually focus on the poor, the sick, or any of the other people who Jesus spent his life helping.