I say, screw ’em. I just don’t care about my credit score, I pay cash for everything and I like it that way. When it grows to show 50 percent of consumers with bad scores, obviously they’re going to have to readjust their system:
NEW YORK – The credit scores of millions more Americans are sinking to new lows.
Figures provided by FICO Inc. show that 25.5 percent of consumers — nearly 43.4 million people — now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It’s unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use.
Because consumers relied so heavily on debt to fuel their spending in recent years, their restricted access to credit is one reason for the slow economic recovery.
“I don’t get paid for loan applications, I get paid for closings,” said Ritch Workman, a Melbourne, Fla., mortgage broker. “I have plenty of business, but I’m struggling to stay open.”
FICO’s latest analysis is based on consumer credit reports as of April. Its findings represent an increase of about 2.4 million people in the lowest credit score categories in the past two years. Before the Great Recession, scores on FICO’s 300-to-850 scale weren’t as volatile, said Andrew Jennings, chief research officer for FICO in Minneapolis. Historically, just 15 percent of the 170 million consumers with active credit accounts, or 25.5 million people, fell below 599, according to data posted on Myfico.com.
More are likely to join their ranks. It can take several months before payment missteps actually drive down a credit score. The Labor Department says about 26 million people are out of work or underemployed, and millions more face foreclosure, which alone can chop 150 points off an individual’s score. Once the damage is done, it could be years before this group can restore their scores, even if they had strong credit histories in the past.
When it grows to show 50 percent of consumers with bad scores, obviously they’re going to have to readjust their system.
Why would you think that? The credit score racket now allows banks to force middle class borrowers into the same sorts of shitty, usurious deals that previously banks could only force on minorities and the very poor. Why on earth would they change things just because over half of all consumers will be forced to borrow on terms that would make a loan shark blush?
Because people will just stop using credit, and we can’t have that.
when i heard this news on the radio this AM, I just started laughing.
Who could have predicted that in a game that’s been rigged (thanks to the bankruptcy reform Bill of 2005), the house would win over and over again, until no one could afford to play anymore.
I’ve been saying for years that this policy is unsustainable, and that in fact eventually everyone’s credit scores will be reset, because as you say, “people will just stop using credit, and we can’t have that.”
Except for some (insert terms of extreme profanity here) employers are apparently using credit scores to weed out who they hire.
Wonderful news for the long-term unemployed.
Of course the games rigged, HAS BEEN for much of my lifetime. I said years ago (1972, to be exact) that I’d file bankruptcy when GM laid me off, and I did! As soon as I got another gig, here comes more offers in the mail extending credit again. Bottom line? Fuck em. They’ll extend credit over and over again, especially if more than 40-50% of the of the adult population can’t get credit under the current rules regarding credit scores. Hell, after filing bankruptcy 3 times in a lifetime, I don’t give a shit about credit scores………..use cash, you sleep better!
As a new employer in the state of PA, I don’t do credit checks on my employees. I’m a very small company and a big believer in 2nd chances. It does help that I’m in a position to know each one of my employees personally.