____ is a privilege, not a right!

September 2, 2008 10:13 AM

What are some LESS obvious things that can disqualify someone from obtaning a job, car, or an apartment?

I think it's well known that if someone has a criminal record, they'll have a lot of trouble finding employment. Or, if you get a DUI, your driver's license may be suspended or even revoked. But, I'm sure there's less obvious things that can cut off your access to housing, transportation, and employment.

It almost happened to me a few years ago. My father is one of those people who do not like to put his vehicle documents in his glove department or anywhere else in his car. He fears that if someone steals his car, they may steal his identity also, or the thieves may locate his address and stalk him. When I was younger, I let him talk me into doing same thing. Well, I got into a little fender-bender, and the cop asked me for my vehicle documents. I didn't have them, and the cop told me that was a somewhat serious offense. I asked what could happen. He said, depending on my record, I could lose my driving privileges for a year and have to pay a $1000 fine. We did NOT learn about this in drivers ed!

Fortunately, nothing happened, but it was a wake up call that the possiblity of me losing my driving privileges was a lot easier than I previously thought. As I am transitioning into "adult" life, the fear of me not being able access (or losing access to) transportation, housing, and employment is increasing.

So, what are some less obvious things:

1. That could prevent me from getting a job...or get me fired?
2. That could prevent me from buying a new car, having my license revoked/suspended, or having my car repossesed?
3. That could prevent me from renting out a house or apartment?

posted by sixcolors to grab bag (27 comments total)

Poor credit won't get you fired or affect your license or get your car repo'd, but it absolutely can affect your ability to get hired at certain jobs or approved for certain apartment listings, if they run a credit check.
posted by availablelight at 10:23 AM on September 2, 2008

Well, bad credit can be an obstacle to all those things. Somewhat less obviously, absence of credit history (bad OR good) can cause some of the same problems.
posted by peachfuzz at 10:24 AM on September 2, 2008

Uh, what state are you in? All I keep in my care in terms of documents is the little proof of insurance card and have never had an issue.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:32 AM on September 2, 2008

I suppose everyone is, by now, wise to the fact that drunken frat-boy or Girls Gone Wild pics and the like posted on MySpace or Facebook or whatever can get you into trouble if web-savvy prospective employers go in search. And some of 'em do.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 10:32 AM on September 2, 2008

Uh, what state are you in? All I keep in my care in terms of documents is the little proof of insurance card and have never had an issue.

That was removed from my car also, that was the very thing that the cop shat in his pants about.
posted by sixcolors at 10:35 AM on September 2, 2008

There were some stories a year or so ago about some folks whose names mistakenly appeared on a terrorist watchlist (this is in the U.S.) who were then unable to buy a car and/or get a mortgage. (I've been googling, but my fu is not strong this morning. Perhaps someone will be along with links shortly.)
posted by rtha at 10:41 AM on September 2, 2008

Ah - not even a year ago.

One man went into a Glen Burnie, Md., Toyota dealership to buy a car, only to be told that a name check revealed he was on a U.S. Treasury Department watchlist of suspected terrorists and drug dealers. He had to be "checked for tattoos," he said, to make sure he wasn't the suspect.
posted by rtha at 10:43 AM on September 2, 2008

You raise a very valid question. The best answer is that more and more things will become available to landlords, employers, etc., and most people have no idea how serious this could become.

It's not just your credit rating. It's not just the Big Three (Experian, Transunion, Equifax) credit bureaus that are collecting your information. They focus mainly on financial information. The biggest danger to your privacy and a threat to potential employment due to ______ (fill-in-the-blank) comes from the big data mining companies who have made it their business (and a very big one indeed) to mine all kinds of information about you from multiple sources and no detail seems to be too small for them to collect.

Think Choicepoint. They collect anything and everything about you. They offer their dossiers to employers, property managers, etc. Here is a Washington Post article about Choicepoint that should send chills up the spines of anybody who cares about privacy. You can look at them as a credit reporting agency on steroids. Some reports say some of these firms collect your political party affiliation, known political activities, organizations you belong to and many other things than simply collating all public information.

So, as for your question, assume just about anything you do that gets put in any database could eventually find its way to data miners like Choicepoint, LexisNexus and Acxiom - which pass them along like good corporate citizens to other good corporate citizens to further create a caste-like system in America. Not to frighten you - it's just the new reality.
posted by Gerard Sorme at 10:55 AM on September 2, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

Somewhat less obviously, absence of credit history (bad OR good) can cause some of the same problems.

Wow! I heard that a good credit history is better than none, but i didn't know that it could actively harm you. What's the reasoning? Isn't the usage of credit cards is what get people in financial trouble? Isn't best not to touch credit cards with a ten-foot-pole in the first place?

It looks like I need to read/search more posts in the "work and money" forum...
posted by sixcolors at 10:56 AM on September 2, 2008

What's the reasoning? Isn't the usage of credit cards is what get people in financial trouble? Isn't best not to touch credit cards with a ten-foot-pole in the first place?

Yes, but it's also an easy indicator of how reasonable and/or consistent you are with paying your bills over a lengthy period of time. That's something that an income history, pay stubs, employment records, etc. won't show.

There are ways around not having a credit history or credit score, but it's up to you to decide if you want to play the game that way. (I do, personally.)
posted by greenland at 11:12 AM on September 2, 2008

Wow! I heard that a good credit history is better than none, but i didn't know that it could actively harm you. What's the reasoning? Isn't the usage of credit cards is what get people in financial trouble? Isn't best not to touch credit cards with a ten-foot-pole in the first place?


A friend of mine wasn't able to get a cell phone because he didn't have a credit rating. The reason was concerns about identity theft: being an adult with no credit history at all sends off red flags.
posted by bookish at 11:22 AM on September 2, 2008

What's the reasoning? Isn't the usage of credit cards is what get people in financial trouble? Isn't best not to touch credit cards with a ten-foot-pole in the first place?

Having a sizeable amount of available credit and not abusing it demonstrates financial responsibility.
posted by thisjax at 11:33 AM on September 2, 2008

Perhaps a little less obvious: having a good safety net of family and friends. Especially when starting out after college, there are times when people may have to borrow money for a security deposit, ask for a personal reference for an apartment application, get a co-signer, etc. All of which are much easier if you have someone close to you who is reliable and knows you'll repay them.
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:45 AM on September 2, 2008

I think, from the creditors' perspective, that not having any history at all is seen as a risk because it makes you into an unknown. If you have no history of responsible use of credit, then there's no telling (from their perspective) when you might pick up a piece of plastic, go wild, and flee to Ecuador. They just don't know. Hence somebody with a long track record of paying on time looks like a safer bet.

Debt is a huge obstacle to a lot of things; it probably won't get you fired if you're already employed, but it may make it very difficult to get certain jobs. I've been credit-checked for volunteer positions — people with debt are seen in a lot of places as too much of a risk to be allowed access to expensive equipment / sensitive information / money / drugs, even in the absence of a criminal record. (I'm not sure this is legal in all states, so maybe you could dodge it by moving somewhere credit checks were more heavily regulated.)

Although past drug use (absent legal problems) isn't that much of an obstacle, it can still bite you if you try to work for the government, obtain a security clearance, or perform some military / law enforcement jobs. They're not as strict about it as I understand they once were, but you can still expect a lot of additional scrutiny if you don't deny all drug use, ever.

Being involuntarily committed to a mental-health facility as an adult can also trip you up, in certain occupations. I've seen that asked on quite a few job applications (usually right after "have you ever been convicted of a felony," and right before the drug-use questions, making it pretty clear what they think of the possibility). I think involuntary committals are also being added to the FBI instant-check databases (which are primarily used for firearms purchases, but I think also get hit when a background investigation is run) as a result of the VA Tech thing. I'd hope that something like that would be expungable with sufficient documentation, but it seems like there are still lots of possibilities for bureaucratic hassles and Catch-22s.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:48 AM on September 2, 2008

In Pennsylvania, you can lose your license for drinking beer in your house.
posted by DWRoelands at 12:05 PM on September 2, 2008

In Pennsylvania, you can lose your license for drinking beer in your house.

In California (and probably other states), your license can be suspended if you have a seizure. You don't have to have been behind the wheel when you have the seizure.
posted by rtha at 12:11 PM on September 2, 2008

A little off topic, but this CAN and HAS prevented people from getting jobs:

Posting offensive, degrading, inappropriate, unprofessional pictures of yourself OR text online under your real name (or a easily revealed disguise). Facebook, Myspace, etc...

I read somewhere that 25% of employers GOOGLE potential employees.
posted by Spurious at 12:26 PM on September 2, 2008

In California (and probably other states), your license can be suspended if you have a seizure. You don't have to have been behind the wheel when you have the seizure.

Yup. Happened to me with my first seizure in ~1988. I was not allowed to drive for 6 months.
posted by Stewriffic at 12:41 PM on September 2, 2008

In Massachusetts, if you refuse to take the Breathalyzer test - even if you've passed all the field-sobriety tests with flying colors - you lose the "right" to drive for 180 days. The fact that you refused is not admissible in court (ask me how I know!) but the suspension is "administrative" meaning that not even the judge who acquits you can cancel it.

Oh, and there will be a small $large fee for reinstating your right to drive, because updating your record in the central Commonwealth of Massachusetts Microsoft Access file is a lot of work.
posted by nicwolff at 12:55 PM on September 2, 2008

To followup Stewriffic and Spurious's comment: In CA you could automatically lose your license for 6 months if you lose consciousness for any type of medical reason.

My mother passed out at work from having an extremely high level of blood sugar (she was a diabetic). Even with a doctor's note stating that this was a freak occurrence, she lost her license for a while.
posted by sideshow at 1:59 PM on September 2, 2008

In Massachusetts, if you refuse to take the Breathalyzer test - even if you've passed all the field-sobriety tests with flying colors - you lose the "right" to drive for 180 days. The fact that you refused is not admissible in court (ask me how I know!) but the suspension is "administrative" meaning that not even the judge who acquits you can cancel it.

yeah, but if you're really balls-out drunk, this is much better than the months-years a license could be lost for if you agree to the test. in all but two states your refusal to take the test IS admissible, which seems like a pretty clear violation of the 5th in my opinion.
posted by tremspeed at 5:08 PM on September 2, 2008

Having a sizeable amount of available credit and not abusing it demonstrates financial responsibility.

And yet, having too much available credit versus your income can make a creditor think you could get yourself in real trouble with just a couple of weeks of spree spending. This is why paying off a credit card with another one that has a lower rate might do nothing to lower your FICO score, even though you just significantly reduced your future obligations (in your view). You need to cancel the other credit line to get your available credit back in line with your income.

Back on topic:

He said, depending on my record, I could lose my driving privileges for a year and have to pay a $1000 fine.

Honestly, this sounds to me more like the penalty for not being insured according to state law. They really couldn't care less about the documents; they want to make sure you are financially responsible in the event of a wreck. In my experience, minor paperwork issues like this are the sort that almost any judge will give you a continuance to work out.

I had a situation some years back where I was driving my parents' car in Illinois that could apply. I was supposed to pick them up at the airport, but I ran into a roadside sobriety/documents checkpoint. I didn't have my wallet, which was in my other pants (whoops), so I couldn't produce my Wisconsin driver's license. I got a ticket for driving without a license or proof of insurance, but laughed it off since I wasn't a resident of Illinois. (In those days states didn't share ticket information and so forth.) The trouble was that after I didn't pay the ticket, I was assigned an Illinois license which was immediately suspended. Again, this seemed like a bureaucratic issue to me. But when I was stopped for speeding (6 mph over the limit on the Illinois Tollway), I ended up with a driving on a suspended license citation -- oodles more serious with the possibility of jail time. I was booked, stuck in a drunk tank, and had to be bailed out. I then had a month or so to run around to state officials to show them that the whole time I was a legal driver in Wisconsin AND an assigned driver on my parents' insurance. When I went to court, the fact that I had received assistance from my state rep was portrayed as Chicago corruption (this was "downstate", which is to say, Boone County). I got socked with the maximum fine for speeding, something like $350, but they dismissed the other charge.

It was a lesson in how something minor can snowball through neglect into something major.

When getting my own proof of financial responsibility in Illinois, I also found out that having previously been on a psychiatric medication (Prozac) is all they need to deny you. I went down the block to an insurer of last resort instead.

There was another point at which I discovered that moving back and forth between states was a problem. I didn't access one of my bank accounts for four months, and my ATM card was blocked. It turned out they had suspended the account for non-activity. (Gee, I thought that was why I had them deduct the fees directly...) When I went to reactivate it, I was turned down flatly. I went home, changed out of my jeans and t-shirt, and returned to the bank in my fitted business suit, and had no problem reactivating the account. Appearance can matter, even when you don't think it should.

I also ran into trouble once when my overdraft protection maxed out while I was in Wisconsin and over a period of about ten days I accumulated $500 in fees. Through a similar intervention I was able to get that resolved (an out-of-town check was in limbo waiting to clear). But it was surprising to me how quickly my bank seemed to "turn on me".

the fear of me not being able access (or losing access to) transportation, housing, and employment is increasing.

I think you will always have access to those things. If you mess up occasionally, you are certainly not alone. The business opportunities in credit repair indicate such. You could certainly close off an avenue or two in the process of living your life, but you will rarely be utterly without options unless you have no work skills. I think you're worrying too much as most people can navigate these shoals without actually wrecking. Doesn't mean you wont' have a challenge or two at times. But it's rarely the end of the world.
posted by dhartung at 5:12 PM on September 2, 2008

The trouble was that after I didn't pay the ticket, I was assigned an Illinois license which was immediately suspended. Again, this seemed like a bureaucratic issue to me. But when I was stopped for speeding (6 mph over the limit on the Illinois Tollway), I ended up with a driving on a suspended license citation -- oodles more serious with the possibility of jail time.

I work for the government in Texas dealing with driver's licenses and I can tell you that people's licenses are suspended *all the time* for not paying tickets. It's called an FTA - failure to appear, and it can be put on there for any sort of ticket or failure to appear in court. Texas does the similar thing to Illinois (from your description) where we assign a "dummy" license number to out of state drivers so that we have a record to attach their tickets to. In Texas they all start with 80. No real Texas license starts with anything higher than 27, soon to be 28.

When you get suspended for any reason, your suspension gets added to NDR - the National Driving (or is it Driver?) Registry, that other states will do a query on when issuing or renewing your license. This is so people can't just hop to a new state to outrun a suspension or revocation. It's a Good Thing, but when you have a very common name and they get a bad match on you, it's a Very Bad Thing and you have to jump through hoops to get what's called a clearance letter from the state listing the suspension, saying it's really not you. The wheels of bureaucracy churn slowly, I'm afraid.

Another reason you can get your license suspended, at least in Texas, is for not paying child support. A friend of mine in a neighboring department was telling me they are planning on adding other categories of things (non-driving-related) that you can be suspended for as well, but I can't remember what specifically.

Always keep your insurance card with you!
posted by marble at 9:20 PM on September 2, 2008

Another thing to consider is your poor (bad) credit history if you ever want or need to obtain a secret or top secret clearance for employment. Some defense contractors require this as do several government agencies. At my employer (three letter government agency), we actually do not hire people who cannot pass the background check. This includes secretaries and other entry level positions.

I was a personal reference for someone who was applying to the Secret Service and the investigator asked me all sorts of background information about him, including his sexual habits. I'm like 'dude, I just work with the guy'. You never know what kinds of things are going to be involved in a background check for a top secret clearance, besides the usual credit check.
posted by LightMayo at 11:19 AM on September 3, 2008

Unpaid parking tickets can eventually turn into a warrant for your arrest. Move, don´t update your address, lend your car to someone who gets a ticket and doesn´t tell you, don´t receive a notice in the mail, get pulled over for something else, and you could be arrested.

Having anything negative on your driving record can keep you from getting a job involving driving, and will make your insurance rates go up.

You can get a DUI for being impaired for any reason, even if your BAC is below the statutory limit.
posted by yohko at 7:28 PM on September 3, 2008

I don't think anyone has mentioned that medical care can quickly spiral out of control. For example, if you don't have insurance and have an accident or otherwise need urgent care you can easily find yourself in the hole for e.g. $700 to an ambulance company and $1500 to a hospital even if it amounted to a minor boo-boo. Hospitals might have flexible payment plans and they will generally work with you, but the private ambulance companies treat it like any other private debt and will hound you constantly about it and report it as a demerit to the credit agencies.

And this is assuming that it's a minor injury. If you suffer a serious or critical injury then you can easily work up a 5+ figure bill, not to mention the inability to work for an extended period. And even if you do have insurance you will still have deductibles and procedures that aren't covered, etc.

In short even if you're doing just fine today, a medical mishap tomorrow can really play havoc with your credit rating, savings, employability, etc.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:17 PM on September 4, 2008

So, more than simply refraining from posting scandalous pictures of yourself on Facebook or MySpace, you need to get control of your Internet identity. You need to Google yourself and see what comes up. If at all possible, you want to appear on the first page of results, and want as many of the links that appear to be pages under your control. Purchase your name as a domain, and put up a page or blog containing positive, professional information about yourself that shows you in your best light. If you have a very common name, use your middle name as part of your professional name, get your middle name as part of the domain, and include this website on your resume and use it for your email address. This way you'll direct employers to the page about yourself that you control. The site LinkedIn has excellent search-engine placement, so create a LinkedIn resume for yourself as well, and make sure it matches the printed resume you will be sending out. This will be another positive link employers can find when they google you.

Remember that much of your online communication is public, so pay attention to what you put in your Facebook status messages, twitters, blog comments, and postings on websites and forums. If you wouldn't want an employer to see it, don't post it online.
posted by lsemel at 12:29 AM on September 5, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]