really bad credit in Texas = no credit in Washington?

May 10, 2006 6:51 PM

[badcreditfilter] Does moving out of state affect your credit status for the good, for the bad, or no?

Without getting too involved here (because that would require a LOT of details and even then it wouldn't be that clear), I have bad credit. I have atrocious credit. I'm working to pay it off, yes... but it's a slow process and at the rate I'm going, it's doubtful I'll be able to use my credit for myself by 2010... if I'm lucky. Within the next year, I'll be purchasing a car, as well as moving to an apartment - both being the first in my name in a long time. As of today, my credit sucks and there is no way that without a hefty down payment, I'd be able to accomplish this.

In passing, a friend of mine mentioned that when he moved out of state (from Vermont to New Hampshire, if that matters), he inadvertently went from having a low credit score of roughly 350 to having no credit at all. He was told at the car dealership where he was trying to lease a used car that he had absolutely nothing on his credit and would need a cosigner. This same friend has googled this (although I have not seen the search terms and am still looking myself) and found that this has happened to other people as well.

What is it, exactly? Is my friend talking out his ass? Is going from really bad credit to no credit really as easy as moving out of state and getting a license there? It doesn't sound like it, but since google has (so far) not turned up anything, I thought I'd ask all of you.

if it matters, I'm in my midtwenties, I've lived in Dallas my whole life and I'm a freelancer.

posted by damnjezebel to law & government (8 comments total)

If it ever happens, it's almost certainly a glitch in the Matrix. The credit agencies track you by your personal data such as social security number, your name, and your date of birth. To be sure, when I moved from Detroit to Seattle, I didn't lose one ounce of my bad credit karma.
posted by kindall at 7:12 PM on May 10, 2006

I've moved from TN, to DE, and then to NY... and my credit score did disappear or get better.
posted by kimdog at 7:26 PM on May 10, 2006

No change. If anything, you take a slight hit on your credit because you're now at an address where you haven't been for a long time (I think living in the same place for a long time is counted as a plus).
posted by evariste at 7:26 PM on May 10, 2006

oops... did NOT disappear.
posted by kimdog at 7:26 PM on May 10, 2006

Once upon a time, there were little independent "credit bureaus" in large and small cities across the United States.

Over the years, those little individual credit bureaus hooked up and affiliated with five national reporting systems/companies (Pinger, Chilton, Trans Union, TRW, CBI). Each of these five companies covered specific areas. When you signed up to purchase reports from one of these companies or their local affiliates, you'd get a map of what parts of the country they covered. Knowing the geographical coverage was valuable. If you knew that a new customer had just moved to town from Atlanta, CBI had the best coverage. From Los Angeles, TRW. From Nashville, probably Chilton. And so on.

Now, some small companies would save money by not purchasing service from all five companies. In Minnesota, Pinger or Chilton were usually good enough for all your local customers; adding Trans Union would beef up your coverage towards Wisconsin and Chicago. But if you didn't purchase CBI, you might not be able to track people who moved to town from parts of the southeast. If I recall correctly, an Atlanta to Minneapolis move in 1985 might have given a person a chance to "leave bad credit behind".

Those days are pretty much gone. Credit reporting companies have consolidated into three systems with national coverage. The only way to cut yourself off from a bad credit history is either to lie--which is fraud, not recommended--or to withhold your SSN and all previous addresses, at which point you would have no history and would be unlikely to get credit immediately anyway. And, you would have to continue the coverup indefinitely, never letting up. AND--if any credit application that you sign asks about previous bad credit in the fine print and you don't volunteer the info, you might still put yourself in a bad situation.

Or, you can wait x number of years, depending on what exactly the problem is, and it will age off the report on its own.
posted by gimonca at 8:15 PM on May 10, 2006 [4 favorites has favorites]

gimonca-fascinating history! Flagged as fantastic.
posted by evariste at 8:26 PM on May 10, 2006

Moving internationally does excellent things for bad credit, if that's a possibility.
posted by goo at 3:01 AM on May 11, 2006

Most people don't know that repairing one's credit is easy & fast, and practically free.
You don't need to pay anybody to do it, and you can easily turn your credit history around in less than 4-5 months.
Order your 3 credit reports, and contest all items on them, one at a time, via email or fax. The TRW's of the world usually change the item you contest within less than 30 days without questions.
posted by growabrain at 5:52 PM on May 11, 2006