Credit score - not as good as I'd thought

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Credit score - not as good as I'd thought

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#2112419 22-Oct-2018 19:39

Fred99:
elpenguino: That's understandable cos money or lack thereof will make some people vulnerable to manipulation.
Tom Clancy 101...

But wait - so (very clearly) are some wealthy people - so it's a question of morality not $$$.

Might also be to get a baseline so when you start turning up to work in fur coats and rolls Royces they can ask knowledgeable questions.

I'm guessing there have been questions about morality in the form of one of those personality tests.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

snnet

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#2112435 22-Oct-2018 20:16

SirHumphreyAppleby:

hairy1:

I think the credit score is based on your ability to pay bills off so if you have more debt and pay it off on time your credit scores goes up.

If you have no debt they cannot see that you are a good bill payer so poor credit score...

It's a flawed methodology.

It is flawed, but sadly we see this everywhere. If people don't fit in to their boxes, they are just treated as a bad risk. There doesn't seem to be any common sense applied anymore.

A major bank wouldn't give me a credit card recently, because I refused to provide them with the absolutely absurd amount of documentation they wanted to verify my income (mostly passive). They couldn't care less about the fact that I had sufficient cash to pay off the card many times over. I felt I would be more valued as a customer if I could barely make ends meet. Debt is worth more than people who pay their bills in full each month.

I remember my Dad going in to an appliance chain to purchase a TV. He didn't have enough cash, never ever used electronic payments of any kind (this was probably 20 years ago, I know they existed in mass form back then but he only just got a credit card very recently), but he did have a cheque book. He asked if they would accept a cheque and the lady said she would have to check his credit and to come back later.

Went back in and was told he didn't exist because he didn't owe any money and was therefore a high risk

The result of the story? A tv from the warehouse that died a year later

marej

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#2112436 22-Oct-2018 20:17

most people do not steal from their employers and the ones that do have too much access to the outgoing cash without checks in place. Nothing to do with credit rating.

snnet

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#2112971 23-Oct-2018 22:45

marej:

most people do not steal from their employers and the ones that do have too much access to the outgoing cash without checks in place. Nothing to do with credit rating.

True, but I think maybe the point being made was that if an employee is financially vulnerable they can be easier to persuade to give up information for cash?

Fred99

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#2112978 23-Oct-2018 23:41

snnet:

marej:

most people do not steal from their employers and the ones that do have too much access to the outgoing cash without checks in place. Nothing to do with credit rating.

True, but I think maybe the point being made was that if an employee is financially vulnerable they can be easier to persuade to give up information for cash?

But if they were more financially vulnerable, wouldn't they be much more dependent on keeping their jobs, thus more risk averse, thus less likely to be easily bribed?

I think a big point being missed is that there's probably not good objective evidence for any of this.

bazzer

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#2112981 24-Oct-2018 00:00

AFAIK, 766 is not bad actually. Think of it like a normal distribution, anything over 500 is "good", i.e. above average. Over 700 is great, over 800 is super. I don't think it's really possible to get 1000 but if you did, it probably wouldn't offer any tangible advantages over your current score.

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ObidiahSlope

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#2112993 24-Oct-2018 03:20

About banks being weird about issuing credit cards. I was told by someone who used to work in a bank about an couple he was dealing with who wanted a credit card. He feed all the required application information into the machine and got back a "computer says no" message.

This was nuts because the couple had been customers of the bank for decades without any problems and had several million dollars on fixed deposit. He asked the branch manager to overrule the decision but the manager refused.

Rental car companies wont give you a car without a credit card as well as some hotels wont let you stay if you don't have a credit card. You can't easily make online purchases and have to pay the extra cost of using a travel agent for airline tickets. So a credit card is a very handy thing to have.

Obsequious hypocrite

Fred99

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#2113051 24-Oct-2018 08:32

ObidiahSlope:

Rental car companies wont give you a car without a credit card as well as some hotels wont let you stay if you don't have a credit card. You can't easily make online purchases and have to pay the extra cost of using a travel agent for airline tickets. So a credit card is a very handy thing to have.

Our son rented a car a few weeks ago when on a ski trip, I'm sure he hasn't got a credit card - only a debit card:

https://www.backpackerguide.nz/how-to-hire-a-car-in-new-zealand-without-a-credit-card/

sbiddle

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#2113054 24-Oct-2018 08:45

Hotels will all let you use a debit card - but since they have no way of doing a hold against a debit card they'll hold your money as a bond and refund it when you check out.

Fred99

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#2113070 24-Oct-2018 09:01

sbiddle:

Hotels will all let you use a debit card - but since they have no way of doing a hold against a debit card they'll hold your money as a bond and refund it when you check out.

It makes me wonder how the world functioned and global hotel empires grew and flourished back in the olden days, when I first started travelling for business.

I did my best to stop that credit card "imprint" at check-in thing from happening, "may we please take a credit card imprint sir?" - replying with "no thanks" seemed to be acceptable through to about the early '90s. After then it wasn't.

MikeAqua

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#2113074 24-Oct-2018 09:08

Wages/salary are paid in arrears. Strictly speaking the employee is a creditor and it would be more appropriate for the employee to seek assurances about the employer's ability to pay.

Mike

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#2113076 24-Oct-2018 09:17

Credit scores explained

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/84447742/Your-credit-score-Are-you-a-unicorn-a-thoroughbred-or-donkey

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2113077 24-Oct-2018 09:17

I've yet to see a debit card which rewards me for spending my own money. A credit card lets me accumulate interest until the bill is due and get ~1% cash back on top. Debit cards on the other hand have none of those benefits, and often additional costs such as unsuccessful chargeback fees.

You're crazy if you're not using a credit card for everything you can IMO.

tieke

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#2113114 24-Oct-2018 09:31

This reminded me to check my credit simple score too - currently in the mid-800s: looks like it dropped over fifty points when I paid my mortgage off earlier this year which isn't too intuitive.

elpenguino

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#2113120 24-Oct-2018 09:38

SirHumphreyAppleby:

I've yet to see a debit card which rewards me for spending my own money. A credit card lets me accumulate interest until the bill is due and get ~1% cash back on top.

Problem is merchants raise their prices even more than 1% to accommodate all the fees they have to pay to...... the credit card companies, so overall you're paying more for everything.

Even worse, when I pay by eftpos I am also paying more than I should because they don't have a different price for you and me.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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