Our thanks to consumer advocate Clark Howard. Having no credit history can be as bad as having a low credit score. Employers justify using credit history, and credit score to determine whether or not to hire someone for a job based on the assumption that job performance can be predicted by personal responsibility handling financial matters. It isn’t fair, it’s just the way it is!
Your credit report may keep you from getting a job offer
However, a study from Eastern Kentucky University finds that there’s no correlation between credit score and job performance.
So employers are going into battle with the wrong weapon. They’re listening to their human resources departments that say to run a credit score on all potential hires — even though it’s a meaningless indicator. Silly, silly, silly.
Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, The Los Angeles Times reports that one in three credit reports may contain serious errors.
If you find an error in any of your credit reports, you must dispute it with the individual credit bureau and the issuer of the credit. Be sure to file both disputes at the same time.
Send all supporting evidence via certified mail and tell the credit issuer that you’ll sue them for fiscal damages if the fix is not made in a timely manner.
Don’t trust the bureau itself to launch an investigation into your claim of an error. Their version of an “investigation” is sending an electronic transmittal to the credit issuer and asking if the info they have is correct. Sherlock Holmes they’re definitely not!