[bluedevilzn]

I moved from Canada to California for a new job with a mid six figure salary.

I had a very difficult time finding a place to rent as I had no credit score. Only places that were available without credit score was a room to share. That was not an option with a cat, wife and kids.

Finally, I found a place that was willing to accept the entire year's rent up front. Moving such a large amount of money from Canada to US had its own set of hurdles.

Once that was sorted out, I had to deal with yet more craziness to buy a vehicle. I decided to buy a CPO Mazda from the dealer in cash (using a cheque, of course). Once I signed all the papers, they ran a credit check on my newly created SSN. The system could not find my SSN. So, they denied letting me buy the car because they couldn't accept such a large amount from a person they could not verify. My passport and Canadian driver's license were not acceptable proof of ID for the dealer.

On the flip side, my long history with Amex in Canada was ported over. So, they quickly set me up with very high limit credit cards.

We already live in social credit but I fear the ones maintained by companies might be better for the consumer.

[alisonatwork]

This exact same story pretty much happened to me when I moved to Canada about 15 years ago. I wasn't able to get a credit card for years, and couldn't rent an apartment without a guarantor, despite the fact that I was full-time employed in the tech industry, had zero debt, plenty of savings etc.

What I took from the experience (especially after going through various iterations of it in several other countries) is that most communities are biased against migrants/newcomers. Egalitarianism would be nice, but in practice nepotism and chauvinism are encoded in policy.

[fy20]

Maybe this is why Europe is so popular with migrants? I've lived in four European countries and never had anything like that. To rent a place you just need to pay 1 or 2 months deposit up front. I've never heard of anyone being denied to buy a car with cash (but we don't use cheques... the payment is either successful or not - it doesn't need to clear).

Loans are a different story, it varies a lot - but in my country for example, after working 6 months in a full-time job you can get a mortgage without issues. All they care about is how much you are earning, and that you don't have any other debts so that you couldn't afford the repayments.

[antonymoose]

It’s not a bias against immigrants, it’s a bias against the unknown.

I’ve had an identical experience as an 19 year old college dropout trying to rent an apartment and buy a car with no established credit history. It at least 5 years to qualify for my first unsecured card with $1,000 credit on a 6-figure salary. I could not qualify for any vehicle, not even a used cheap Honda Civic with my lack of history, and I had to play the Craigslist rental game for years as well.

[NautilusWave]

Your credit score IS maintained by companies! Their whole business is maintaining American credit scores. I really have no idea what their business model is.

[DoctorOW]

Yes, the only role of the government was to issue an SSN which has been explicitly said shouldn't be used in such a manner[1].

It is a real pet peeve of mine that people take such hard stands on issues like this when it's so easy to check what's actually happening first. This thread isn't the most egregious example, but it is an example of someone just imagining a system with a big flaw and then suggesting a solution to the problem they made up.

[1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/social-security-n...

[dwd]

Near instantaneous credit checks is their business model, and they operate worldwide.

Their business replies on collecting and storing vast troves of data that influence your credit score.

Were the likes of Experian and Equifax taken out of the credit system, you would see a massive credit crunch as every business that relies on them would have to manually verify anyone's credit score (which could introduce a whole new set of biases) or forego that completely.

Interestingly, when it comes to business credit checks, i.e. Financial viability and director background checks and history - this is something an LLM could very easily find red flags from publicly accessible data before forking out money for a full report.

[Bluescreenbuddy]

Data and access to said data is their business model

[wakawaka28]

I'm sure that running credit checks costs money somehow. Accurate credit information facilitates profitable loans.

[KolibriFly]

On paper, credit scores are supposed to measure financial reliability, but in practice they’re more like an arbitrary gatekeeping mechanism

[hiatus]

Are credit scores transnational?

[astura]

>Once that was sorted out, I had to deal with yet more craziness to buy a vehicle. I decided to buy a CPO Mazda from the dealer in cash (using a cheque, of course). Once I signed all the papers, they ran a credit check on my newly created SSN. The system could not find my SSN. So, they denied letting me buy the car because they couldn't accept such a large amount from a person they could not verify. My passport and Canadian driver's license were not acceptable proof of ID for the dealer.

Go to another dealer, I have bought cars with a personal check without having a credit check at all. I think that's a really unusual policy.

[crazygringo]

It's more complicated than that. If the transaction is over $10,000 it needs to be reported to the IRS. Dealers are often involved on the financing side directly, and their systems are just set up to require a Social Security number to put anything into the system. So because of the financing, some of these "know your customer" rules apply, and they automatically get applied to everyone as universal policy -- employees aren't allowed to use judgement to make personal exceptions. And physical IDs can be forged, whereas the existence of a Social Security number in a database can't be.

SSN's aren't perfect, you can still commit identity fraud. But high value financial transactions get safer the more you can verify about someone.

[mettamage]

Holy moly the US is kafkaesque. Gee.

Duly noted. I might be in your position one day in the far future. Will prep for it.

Thanks :)

[betaby]

> Holy moly the US is kafkaesque.

Not really. Try to rent an apartment in Germany (any EU country really).

Canada / USA is a breeze in comparison.

[hdjrudni]

I also moved from Canada to California for a new job with lowish six figure salary.

My experience is almost the opposite of yours though. I moved at the end of 2018. I had to put 2 months deposit for rent instead of 1 because I had no credit, but it was otherwise easy. Transferring lots of money over the border is and continues to be a pain but is doable. I think I used OFX for that, my work gives me a bit of a discount.

I also bought a Mazda. New, not pre-owned. For whatever reason, I think it was extra easy for me to secure financing. The guy at the dealership knew precisely what to do, and could answer the credit questions on his own (you know those weird questions they ask like did you have a credit card in 2015, what was your address in 2014, blah blah). Of course the answer was "no" to everything because I had just arrived and had no history. He got me a better deal than the credit union I was with was offering. Did everything on the spot. I think I got 2.9% APR. Maybe not the best, I see ads for 0 to 0.9% sometimes but I didn't really care because I was going to pay it off quick, but that's not the point -- I got financed with zero credit history in the US. I also put $10k on my brand new US credit card which had 6 months 0% interest. I'm sure they wanted me to rack up a bill and then charge me a fortune on interest but I knew I could (and did) pay it in time.

Other places have been a mixed bag. Credit union took me in no problem. In fact, they were camped outside my work which is how they scooped me up. They know we're all high income earners, so smart move on their part.

Meanwhile, Amazon declined to give me a credit card. Citi only give me $5k credit card and would only raise it $1k or $2k/year, meanwhile Capital One gave me $30k.

Also got financing for some couches one time (Synchrony) and then denied another time. I think Synchrony actually checked my Canadian credit history, but only because the guy at Mancini's knew how to do it properly. At the other furniture store, I think they were n00bs and couldn't relay the information correctly.

Weird.

I guess this is what happens when you sometimes have humans in the loop and sometimes not. If any of them just looked at my salary and my employer or poked around a bit, they'd surely know I could pay some $$$.

[hammock]

> We already live in social credit but I fear the ones maintained by companies might be better for the consumer.

Seems to me to be dependent on how the incentives line up.

A credit bureau WANTS you to part with any money you might have for a car. So it works out when they control the issuance of your loan.

But would you want the NRA to control the social credit system regulating a firearm purchase?

[eadmund]

> But would you want the NRA to control the social credit system regulating a firearm purchase?

I prefer that to Chase controlling it: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/19617/00019768782300... (the link details an instance in which Chase was alleged to have debanked a bipartisan, multireligious charity headed by a former U.S. governor, senator and ambassador). The NRA would probably let me buy the gun, after all!

[bluedevilzn]

Yes…

If you read the comment, you’d notice that there were no loans involved whatsoever.

If you can’t rent or buy a car without a credit score, you should only be allowed to buy a gun until you have proven that you’re a trusted member of the society.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

That's not social credit, that's just credit and it's been around a very long time worldwide. For as long as money has been a thing, people don't let strangers or delinquents borrow it!

Social credit would be like if the government didn't let people lend to you for being a commie or trans. Social credit is not something you can just sort out on the phone.

[Havoc]

Amex in general is quite good with this sort of stuff.

Requested a personal card with no credit score and that somehow went through fine despite friends in similar circumstances getting rejected. Best guess is because I had a company issued Amex already they could use that as history

[mbrochh]

Wow. Thank you for sharing this. I have never been to the US (Germany, Singapore)... this sounds just completely and utterly bonkers to me.

[skeezyboy]

youre talking solely about financial credit there bud. different thing entirely