Monday, June 04, 2007

Would You Believe

While I was waiting for Blogger to come around, I was reading the business section of Yahoo and ran into this article about a guy who wanted to buy a house in Florida, but had a credit problem. It seems he hadn't paid some bills and had a bad FICO score.

For those of you who don't know, your FICO score runs from around 350 to 850 and determines if you get a loan and what the interest rate will be if you get it. Judy and I hit over 800. It's true. We pay the bills on time. Plain and simple. FICO is a concept that came from a company called Fair Issac, as you can read in the article. In fact you can read almost everything factual in the article, except what I have to say.

Evidently, there are now sites on the internet where you can "buy" a "spot" on someone's credit card that has a rating like mine and in a month magically transform your FICO rating from crap to excellence. The example in the article is a guy who in a month bought a half million dollar house in Florida that he didn't originally qualify for. The other example is the guy who quit work because he receives $2500 a month in income from renting out 19 "spots" on his credit cards each month. A cottage industry has broken out.

No, I don't think I will do this as a renter of spots on my credit cards. I noticed that Fair Issacs would be making changes. Also, I can't imagine that this loophole will be left open, and I don't want to get caught in the door later on. Just cautious.

8 comments:

mist1 said...

How much would you charge me to rent your credit?

Cindy said...

Sign me up while your at it!

Glamourpuss said...

I think I'd rather not know...

Puss

Anonymous said...

If that guy had 19 renters of his credit, wouldn't his credit go bad? And what if they default in anyway? Does it come back to him?

Wicked H said...

Ah, America the land of opportunity. This has to come around and bite these landlords in the ass at some point.

I'm with pool, how would it not affect the landlord's credit at some point?

M@ said...

That's very tempting CEO. I'm currently an unemployed man with a FICO score in the 800s.

Damn. Just once I'd like to make a quick buck.

The CEO said...

When the person signing up does so, they agree not to use the credit card. It's in their best interest not to do so, as they want to get into a house, so why bite the hand feeding you.

Matt, check the DC Craigslist, and I'll bet you find offers. They haven't made it illegal yet, and they can't grandfather you. If you know a lawyer, it can't hurt to ask first.

To those of you looking to buy in, check your local Craigslist. But do it soon!

Odat said...

No thank you...but thanks for the info...
Peace