Not sure if the bank eats the cost or if you're responsible.

It depends. Most of the time it's the bank. Another thing to be concerned about is the tax liability on the forgiven debt. If you're going to walk away from the house, do it before the end of 2013. That's when the law expires that eliminates the tax burden. After that, it will be considered income again and the owner is responsible for paying tax on it.

I have obviously just had this conversation with the accountant. Still don't know what I'm going to do.

That information can have NO POSSIBLE BEARING on your fitness for any position. Or anything else really.

Sean, unfortunately ita ! is right. You can't get a security clearance, work in the financial sector, or pass the ethics requirements of many professional occupations (lawyer, CPA, etc.) with lousy credit and unpaid debt. Any position that carries fiduciary responsibility usually has good credit as a requirement of the job.

(Still struggling. Good days and bad. Trying not to let lizard brain ruin everything.)

A slight quibble, Sean. Credit score is more your track history of paying back what you borrow, which lenders use to predict how likely you are to pay back in the future (and, as others have pointed out here, other people use for other purposes). Which isn't quite the same thing as how profitable you are as a borrower.

True, probably a better way to put it.

And to be clear, my problem is not with the purported purpose of the number, but with the opaqueness and propriety, and that those extra-normal uses of credit scores are not appropriate because of that.

an opaque, proprietary formula

Well, my job says they look at my credit report, so it's moot to me. I didn't know employers would just look at the number. They seriously do that?

You can't get a security clearance, work in the financial sector, or pass the ethics requirements of many professional occupations (lawyer, CPA, etc.) with lousy credit and unpaid debt. Any position that carries fiduciary responsibility usually has good credit as a requirement of the job.

I understand that. I'm saying that the credit scores as they stand now are not appropriate for measuring those thing, because that's not what credit scores measure.

I don't have a problem with requiring certain positions to meet certain eligibility requirements, I'm saying that using credit scores the way they are used for hiring is like saying you want to check someone's security fitness by checking their background, and then telling them they failed because they wore yellow shoes.

They are saying they are doing one thing, but (whether they are aware of it or not) they are actually doing something else.

They seriously do that?

Even looking at the entire report, because the system is overall opaque, you will never have any way of knowing what was in the credit report that was sent to a potential employer, or how accurate the information was they used to base their decision.

you will never have any way of knowing what was in the credit report that was sent to a potential employer

Yes I do. I was explicitly given the option to see what they saw, and that's how I see my credit reports--by seeing copies when lenders or potential employers request it. I know precisely what BMW and my company based their decisions on it before I got my car loan and my job.

Again, I ask--that's not normal? Well, that's totally appalling.

Now, none of them know *why* I might have lapsed on anything I lapsed on, but there's a lot of detail up in there, and I don't begrudge them using it as a decision-making tool. It's information, and it's an important call.

Told boss. He seemed angry and frustrated, but fortunately does not possess ability to shoot daggers from eyes. I am now so stressed scrambling to fix things that I feel nauseated. Trying to calm the monkey mind, it's so hard.

1/3 of your credit score is the percentage of your credit that you are using. Has jack to do with making payments on time. So when both my credit cards dropped my limits significantly within months of each other (pretty sure in anticipation of legislation, don't remember which one), it dropped my rating under 600.

Even looking at the entire report, because the system is overall opaque, you will never have any way of knowing what was in the credit report that was sent to a potential employer, or how accurate the information was they used to base their decision.

Yes, you do. If you are denied a job based upon your credit report, you are entitled to a copy of said credit report from the same reporting bureau, for free. I look at all three reports each year (consumers are entitled to one free per bureau per year, not including any free report one is entitled to because of adverse action), and I have the opportunity to correct misinformation. Is it easy to correct the information? More often than not, no. But the mechanism exists to contest and update inaccurate information.

You can know exactly what's in your credit report, if you get copies from all three credit bureaus. One problem, though, is that they're frequently wrong and it takes the tortures of the damned to get them fixed. One of the things Clark Howard rails about is the fact that people with poor credit scores have trouble getting insurance or have to pay a high price, when there's almost no correlation between having poor credit and torching your house or wrecking your car. My mother had trouble looking for a new car insurance company, because she's always been a cash buyer and has almost no credit history. (I do not take after her.)

Is it easy to correct the information? More often than not, no. But the mechanism exists to contest and update inaccurate information.

If you challenge something on your report, the bureau contacts the debtor and asks if it's accurate. Debtor says yes, it stays on. Gets a lot harder from there to get things off the report (which is probably what you meant). There are lots of seriously shady debt-collecting practices going on now, too.