PART ONE
The Credit Scoring Site
A bleak account
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PART TWO
creditaccuracy.com
Dirty Data

creditscoring.com
in the media

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The Detroit News, July 17, 2000
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USA Today Hot Site, 9/17/98

USA Today on employers using credit scores, Part 1

National newspaper will not identify its source

Also, see

National Financial Literacy Month, 2011 (video),
Myth: Employers use credit scores


6/16/2009

In 2008, national consumer reporting agencies Equifax, TransUnion and Experian stated that they do not provide credit scores for employment screening purposes. In 2009, USA Today reported twice that employers use credit scores.


Initial email to USA Today asking for its source regarding credit score use by employers



From: creditscoring.com
To: Kathy Chu, USA Today
Subject: credit score, employers
Date: 3/21/2009

You wrote, "And if scores can drop even if consumers do nothing wrong, they say, it raises the question of whether there's a flaw in the credit scoring formulas relied upon by the nation's lenders, insurers, and increasingly employers and landlords."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-03-05-economy-credit-scores_N.htm

Who is your source for the information that, increasingly, employers rely upon credit scoring formulas?



From: creditscoring.com
Sent: None
To: Kathy Chu, USA Today
Subject: Re: credit score, employers II
Date: 3/24/2009

Please reply.



From: Kathy Chu, USA Today
To: creditscoring.com
Subject: Out of Office: credit score, employers II
Date: 3/24/2009

I will be out of the office the week of March 23rd and will have little access to e-mail.

If you have an urgent matter, please contact editor David Craig at [email address]. Please do not contact him with routine story pitches.

I will return your message as soon as I can.

Thanks,

Kathy Chu
Reporter
USA TODAY


From: creditscoring.com
To: Kathy Chu, Commitment to Accuracy [USA Today]
Subject: Re: credit score, employers III
Date: 4/1/2009

Please reply.



From: Commitment to Accuracy [USA Today]
To: creditscoring.com
Subject: USA TODAY - Editorial Department (KMM6378449V82969L0KM)
Date: 4/1/2009

Thank you for your recent letter to USA TODAY. I have shared your comments with the appropriate assignment desk. An editor will be in contact if a more specific response is warranted.

Your interest in USA TODAY is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Brent Jones
Reader Editor


USA Today's reply



From: Chu, Kathy
To: creditscoring.com
Subject: RE: credit score, employers III
Date: 4/1/2009

Please read the story again. We mention data in the story about employers increasingly relying on credit information.

Kathy Chu
Reporter
USA TODAY

Find my latest stories at: http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/reporter.aspx?id=349


From: creditscoring.com
To: Chu, Kathy
Cc: Commitment to Accuracy [USA Today]
Subject: RE: credit score, employers III
Date: 4/1/2009

Consumer reporting agencies Equifax, Experian and TransUnion do not provide credit scores for employment screening.

You wrote:

"It becomes this self-fulfilling problem," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Lenders cut credit lines, and if consumers simply do what they had been doing, their credit score could fall. Other lenders respond by cutting their own lines or raising rates."

The cycle concerns consumer advocates and some legislators. Some wonder whether restrictions should be imposed on lenders' ability to slash credit limits and close accounts. And if scores can drop even if consumers do nothing wrong, they say, it raises the question of whether there's a flaw in the credit scoring formulas relied upon by the nation's lenders, insurers, and increasingly employers and landlords.

USA TODAY, in previous stories in its "Credit Trap" series, has reported that during the housing boom, banks sharply raised card limits in part because of a surge in home equity, then guided borrowers to use mortgages to pay off card balances.

What are the names of the consumer advocates and legislators who say that employers use credit scores?


Message to "consumer advocates and some legislators" (the only legislator) in the USA Today article



From: creditscoring.com
To: Gail Hillebrand, Consumers Union
Subject: RE: credit score, employers III, "rely," "relied"
Cc: Chu, Kathy, USA Today; Lauren Zeichner Bowne, Consumers Union; Michael McCauley, Consumers Union; action@consumer.org; Travis Plunket, Consumer Federation of America; Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG); Chi Chi Wu, National Consumer Law Center; Lisa Donner, ACORN; AcornNews@Acorn.org; acorncampaign@acorn.org; Steve Cleary, AkPIRG; Fredric D. Bellamy, Arizona Consumers Council; Phyllis Rowe, Arizona Consumers Council; Alan Fisher, California Reinvestment Coalition; Lynda DeLaforgue, Citizen Action/Illinois; Linda Hilton, Coalition of Religious Communities; Peter Skillern, Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina; Albert Sterman, Democratic Process Center, Inc.; Bill Newton, Florida Consumer Acton Network; Cheryl Hystad, Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition; Sarah Ludwig, Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project; Brad Lamb, North Carolina Consumers Council, Inc.; info@ncconsumer.org; Sue Berkowitz, South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center; B.J. Kincade, Victim’s Committee for Recall of Defective Vehicles, Inc.; Irene Leech, Virginia Citizens Consumer Council; sen_dodd@dodd.senate.gov
Subject: RE: credit score, employers III, "rely," "relied"
Date: 4/2/2009

Please reply.

------------- At 11:46 PM 2/16/2009, creditscoring.com wrote to Gail Hillebrand, Consumers Union:

You said, "An automatic FICO disaster information shield would also prevent FICO scores from becoming a barrier to reemployment of displaced people looking for new work with employers who rely in part on credit scores."

See http://www.creditscoring.com/influence/government... .

Who is your source regarding credit score use by employers?

What is the name of an employer who uses credit scores?

-------------

[copy of email thread, to-date, regarding USA Today]





USA Today's policy: "Readers have a right to know where the information in the newspaper comes from."



[to Part 2]

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Do employers use credit scores?

Don't believe it.


April, 1997: "Information on how to obtain one's credit score is suspiciously absent from your site. How do I get mine?"

"And we're not running a game show. I mean, we're evaluating risk. We're not trying to have people get--achieve the highest score."

"Fisher is a fan of going by the book and then beyond it."

"He beat the scoring proponents to the punch by scooping up the web address http://www.creditscoring.com, from which he launches often strident, sometimes wacky, but usually well-documented attacks on the credit-scoring concept and the industries that support it."

Realty Consumers Empowered By Online "Peoples" Court - "His Web site CreditScoring.com helped him-- and millions of other consumers-- extend fair credit reporting rights to credit scoring information."

"Fisher operates the www.creditscoring.com Web site, which skewers the secrecy of the credit bureaus and Fair, Isaac." - The Detroit News

"CreditScoring.com is an exceptionally-interesting site that offers news and information regarding credit scoring and-- really-- the entire credit process."

"'Garbage in, garbage out,' says Greg Fisher of Dayton, Ohio, who runs two Web sites on the subject, creditscoring.com and creditaccuracy.com."