5 things nobody tells you about being poor

Originally Posted by Gibonius

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If you have no documented history of using credit, how would lenders know how likely you are to repay them? Your credit rating is not supposed to be a measure of your fiscal situation, but of your history of repaying debt.

If you want to use credit and get good terms, play the game and build a credit history. Saying things like you're not "supposed" to use credit is pretty meaningless, we all know the rules in reality and credit is occasionally necessary and not dangerous or financially irresponsible if you use it correctly. I use credit for damn near everything and pay it off every month, never carry a balance and I have a 780+ credit score just from credit cards.

You're not really being "lent" anything if you get a hotel room for a night, or sign a one-year lease on an apartment, are you? The respective contracts that are entered into should provide enough remedy if anything goes wrong.

Originally Posted by M. Bardamu

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You're not really being "lent" anything if you get a hotel room for a night, or sign a one-year lease on an apartment, are you? The respective contracts that are entered into should provide enough remedy if anything goes wrong.

I think the logic is that landlords do not want to have to seek remedy and that credit scores are fairly predictive of one's ability to live up to a financial contractual agreement.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

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I think the logic is that landlords do not want to have to seek remedy and that credit scores are fairly predictive of one's ability to live up to a financial contractual agreement.
This. Signing a new tenant is essentially a game of risk management. The point of your credit score is to provide the landlord or management company with a relatively decent proxy for the riskiness of leasing to you. They're not trying to negotiate more money from you, so much as they're trying to ensure that you are capable of paying what they're asking in a timely and regular fashion. Cash flow management in a residential building is often a finely choreographed, highly complex dance in which a large number of variables are in flux each month as the rent comes due. They want you to be as much of a constant as possible.

Originally Posted by M. Bardamu

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You're not really being "lent" anything if you get a hotel room for a night, or sign a one-year lease on an apartment, are you? The respective contracts that are entered into should provide enough remedy if anything goes wrong.
I assume you're talking about hotels requesting credit cards to stay, not checking your credit score, since I cannot imagine any hotel has ever checked anybody's credit rating. They want the card in case you trash the room, and a card is a lot easier than getting a cash bond or taking you to court after the fact, etc. Other posts already talked about the apartment business. Many landlords do not do credit checks anyway, and will ask for something like proof of income. It's kind of pointless to talk about how things "should" be, this is how it actually works. You know the rules, and it is not particularly difficult for a financially responsible person to build up a very good credit score. It's not even an income thing, I had a 770+ credit score while in grad school making **** money. Getting a credit card is even easier, really no reason for an adult in America not to have one other than stubborn principle. And if you're suffering because of pointlessly stubborn adherence to useless principles...too bad.

Originally Posted by Don Carlos

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The most annoying thing on Earth, IMO, is how credit card companies won't lift a ******* finger if something is seriously amiss with your spending pattern (i.e., some hacker in Nigeria obtained your CC number and just bought $20,000 worth of diapers or something, and you're single w/out kids). In fraud situations like this, many banks won't even call or notify you. And they won't decline the transactions. Instead, you'll find out on your monthly bill that you just got assfucked, and the burden is on you to go through a nightmarishly long and Byzantine process to get it all sorted out with your bank, the credit agencies, and so forth.

As a victim of identity theft a few years back, I can easily say that it was the most frustrating experience of my life.

The solution? My bank now charges me $10 a month for fraud protection. This $120 a year buys me the right to have them block suspicious charges and/or call me if suspicious charges pop up. So glad the bank needs $120 a year to do its ******* job.

You should get an Am Ex. I've had my CC number stolen twice (and fraudulent charges were made to my CC), and all it took each time was a simple, 2 minute phone call to Am Ex. Am Ex took care of everything after that.

Originally Posted by magogian12345

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You should get an Am Ex. I've had my CC number stolen twice (and fraudulent charges were made to my CC), and all it took each time was a simple, 2 minute phone call to Am Ex. Am Ex took care of everything after that.

Yeah, I'm considering opening an AmEx account and gradually shifting the bulk of my transaction activity to it. I'll keep the Shittibank account open purely for the sake of maintaining length of account status on it, but eventually, it'll be kept on life support while the AmEx gets the meat and potatoes.

Originally Posted by GQgeek

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Eh? It's some some conspiracy by banks to get those damned poor people.
::

Actually, it kind of is. Ask Kunk about it. I believe he has sat in on meetings where strategy was discussed for doing exactly that.

seriously this article is for hillbillies,
what do ppl not understand about keeping a positive balance in a bank account or that you need credit really worries me,
on a sympathetic note i will attribute this to lack of education at the school level, maybe america really needs to look into "home economics" or basics of handling your money
SMH

Originally Posted by Don Carlos

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Yeah, I'm considering opening an AmEx account and gradually shifting the bulk of my transaction activity to it. I'll keep the Shittibank account open purely for the sake of maintaining length of account status on it, but eventually, it'll be kept on life support while the AmEx gets the meat and potatoes.

Plus, with the blue cash card, you can get 5% back on grocery and 1.25% back on everything else (after spending some ~$6,000 per year).

Originally Posted by Gibonius

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I assume you're talking about hotels requesting credit cards to stay, not checking your credit score, since I cannot imagine any hotel has ever checked anybody's credit rating. They want the card in case you trash the room, and a card is a lot easier than getting a cash bond or taking you to court after the fact, etc.

Other posts already talked about the apartment business. Many landlords do not do credit checks anyway, and will ask for something like proof of income.


It's kind of pointless to talk about how things "should" be, this is how it actually works. You know the rules, and it is not particularly difficult for a financially responsible person to build up a very good credit score. It's not even an income thing, I had a 770+ credit score while in grad school making **** money. Getting a credit card is even easier, really no reason for an adult in America not to have one other than stubborn principle. And if you're suffering because of pointlessly stubborn adherence to useless principles...too bad.

When is the last time you tried to get a credit card with no credit history at all? I'm guessing pre credit crunch, am I right? I ended up having to get someone to cosign mine to finally get approved after months of getting declined due to not having a history. I would have taken out a secured loan but the smallest amount I could take out was something like $3000, and I checked every bank in the area, they all had high minimum loans. The financial crisis fucked everything over in regards to starting up your credit history.

Also, overdraft fees are ridiculous and way too high. Maybe it should be calculated by how far in the negative you are? Getting charged $40 or whatever just for going two dollars in the negative is insane. Not to mention how my bank loves to put all my debit purchases through all at once, 4 days after the fact. But yeah, **** poor people, those idiots are just stupid or they would be rich! OO-RAH!

Originally Posted by sinnedk

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seriously this article is for hillbillies.
SMH

No, it's really not. Banks spend lots of time and money and hire very smart and devious people all to figure out ways in which to impose fees and generally make your life more difficult. Banks are also in a position where you simply can't live without one and they are supported in many, many ways by the government.
Since I'm a part owner of most of the major banks, it's not crazy to expect a little ******* service or basic honest business dealing on their part.

People talk about a disincentive to make purchases you can't afford. How about simply not allowing them? How is that for the ultimate simple and cheap disincentive?

Most banks make money off of your noncompliance with their policies. Then they try to make it as hard as possible for you to comply. That's their business model in a nutshell.

Originally Posted by Navi

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When is the last time you tried to get a credit card with no credit history at all? I'm guessing pre credit crunch, am I right? I ended up having to get someone to cosign mine to finally get approved after months of getting declined due to not having a history. I would have taken out a secured loan but the smallest amount I could take out was something like $3000, and I checked every bank in the area, they all had high minimum loans. The financial crisis fucked everything over in regards to starting up your credit history.

Also, overdraft fees are ridiculous and way too high. Maybe it should be calculated by how far in the negative you are? Getting charged $40 or whatever just for going two dollars in the negative is insane. Not to mention how my bank loves to put all my debit purchases through all at once, 4 days after the fact. But yeah, **** poor people, those idiots are just stupid or they would be rich! OO-RAH!

If someone typically makes a lot of small purchases and carries a balance that approaches 0 often, I would advise them to figure out how much they usually spend a month and pull it out in cash from the ATM. This way they aren't in a position of over-drafting (or over-drafting multiple times). If they're using the debit card 25 times a month for little things like coffee (although you shouldn't be paying $3 for coffee if you're tight on funds), snacks, etc, just pay in cash. This is assuming that the person believes that checking their bank balance often is too much work. I will say that when you have money set aside in an overdraft account and it kicks in, it's BS if you're charged for that.

I have have had the CC fraud thing go both ways.

Once, I was charged for a few blurays shipped to florida (I live in IL and my CC is registered in MN) and it would have gone through if not for me noticing it. Granted, I was a student at the time and the person had managed to buy the movies on a website that showed up on the statement as ecampusbooks or something. I barely noticed until I was like "wait...pretty sure I bought all of my books used this quarter".

Another time, I was trying to buy a keg at a liquor store. The card didn't go through and they offered to call the processer to figure it out (in retrospect, I should have just used one of my check cards) and since they were making the phone call, I said why not. This turned into a hugely long process where eventually I was on the phone conferenced between both the card processing person at visa and the account person at my issuing bank.
They were like "we noticed a few charges made in chicago lately...this looked suspicious" and I was getting kind of pissed since at that point I had lived in chicago for 4-5 years (but maintained an out of state billing address on that card) and while I had never bought a keg with the card or maybe even shopped at that liquor store, I had certainly rang up a *lot* of transactions at shady liquor stores in the city.

They couldn't seem to grasp the concept that I lived in chicago but had no desire to change my billing address but did not want chicago transactions declined (I keep a few accounts out of state in case I buy a car and don't want to register it in IL and have to cover my windshield with tax stickers).

Zero problems with my spg amex so far (been about a year) and the service has been great.

Btw, local credit unions are always a pleasure to deal with. For many years, talking late 80s/early 90s, they were at a big disadvantage in terms of access to ATM, etc. Now you can get accounts with zero fees no matter what ATM you use, Visa/MC CCs, great loan rates...I've even had the one with my mortgage call to tell me there was a SNAFU with mailing the mortgage bills and we should stop by to pay and avoid a possible late fee (in case we didn't notice the bill had not arrived).

There are many ways around the big banks if you're not in the financial strata to benefit from using them.