Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:<\/p>\n
I know a guy who invested in real estate in the late 90\u2019s and early 00\u2019s, bought his last parcel in 2004 before any of the troubles began. Talked to him last night for a bit. Interesting story.<\/p>\n
Like many honest, hardworking people, he\u2019s been moderately successful in his career and had a 800+ credit score, but has been struggling to make payments on the real estate investment properties and can\u2019t refinance or sell because of declining values. He finally admitted defeat last year and filed for bankruptcy, letting all the properties go. He owed no credit card debt, no consumer debt, only mortgages on the real estate; but the big lenders weren\u2019t content to take the property back, they also wanted judgments to garnish his wages and levy his accounts. Bankruptcy was his only out.<\/p>\n
He was astonished to learn that after filing for bankruptcy, all his other creditors cut him off, too. Credit cards that were fully paid up to date with a perfect payment history were canceled on the grounds that continuing to accept his payments was too risky. His bank \u2013 to whom he owed no money but instead had money in the bank – canceled his ATM card. He can\u2019t even renew his cell phone contract! He didn\u2019t intend to \u201cgo Galt\u201d and drop off the grid \u2013 he\u2019s been thrown off the grid by mindless computer programs that consider only the Fair Isaac score and not his personal history of prompt payments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think Fair Isaac and the three big credit-scoring agencies have been one of the biggest obstacles to the economy in recent years, and it’s only going to get worse, as millions of Americans, with their credit scores hammered by the abrupt deflation of their homes and Fair-Isaac’s absurd algorithm, become tray <\/em>to the credit industry.<\/p>\n
So now he cashes his paychecks and pays cash or buys pre-paid VISA cards at Walgreens. I wonder how many other people are in the same boat?<\/p>\n
To what extent is mindlessly computer-controlled credit inhibit the entrepreneurial activity necessary for an economic recovery?<\/p>\n
Perhaps lending needs less federal regulation and more one-on-one human contact?<\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p>\n
Como Park<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think if I were President, I just might reform the credit reporting industry.<\/p>\n
Maybe using the Air Force.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park writes: I know a guy who invested in real estate in the late 90\u2019s and early 00\u2019s, bought his last parcel in 2004 before any of the troubles began. Talked to him last night for a bit. Interesting story. Like many honest, hardworking people, he\u2019s been moderately successful in his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25750,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25732\/revisions\/25750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}