[convolvatron]

why so tentative? i pay my limited bills on time, i have taken on debt twice and paid it off as soon as possible, living basically within my means, and because of this my credit score is terrible.

i can't get a phone contract, a mortgage is out of the question. i automatically fall to the bottom of the list when trying to rent an apartment. don't know what went on at the places i applied to for employment that requested a credit score waiver, but can't imagine it was to my benefit.

now i can't even get on the credit train and start maintaining a card because i'm apparently such a poor risk.

its clearly not the same set of concerns as a patriotism score. but there's clearly some kind of profiling and clustering going on.

[outworlder]

Have you got any credit cards? Get one. Before trying the crappy "secured" cards, try a Discover, they seem lenient if you don't have cards yet. Stuff it in a drawer, add something small to it, such as Netflix, setup autopay, forget about it.

Your credit score will slowly increase. And at no cost to you (other than the time to setup this, which can be minimal if you can get approvals online).

You can (and should) live within your means and that's fine. What creditors want to see is that you have access to credit and you use it responsibly (eg, paying on time). You don't actually need to use any of your available credit.

[nemof]

have you requested your credit history? you should be able to access that for free and that might give you some insight.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0155-free-credit-repor...

and yeah, it's fucking awful and i detest the whole thing.