Comment by colmmacc
3 years ago
I have a very hard time believing that sales-people and trades-people don't take it into considering when negotiating or quoting a price. One of the reasons a car sales person wants to "check your credit" early in the process is to get your credit rating and address - which helps them guess your price sensitivity - and many home services certainly take into account the area you live in even when it is irrelevant.
Yeah, "checking your credit" doesn't exist, really, outside of the US. When making loan decisions, your income and loan totals/history are the main things considered, not an arbitrary score by private third parties that couldn't keep the data safe if their lives depended on it.
A credit score is determined by your loan totals/history.
Every lender needs to assess credit-worthiness in some way, and they resort to the very similar schemes, with minor procedural differences based on cultural factors and historical accident.
Except that credit scores in the US include things such as evictions and credit card use, scores going down if you repay a loan in full and other bullshit, which a random bank determining your credit worthiness in France doesn't do. They ask for proof of income, check with Banque de France if you have outstanding debts or if you have failed debt payments, and that's it.
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A lender or seller does not have to use any specific credit score. Many businesses calculate their own credit score based on borrowing/repayment history, and some do not calculate a score at all.
> many home services certainly take into account the area you live in even when it is irrelevant.
When negotiating a price, how much a buyer is able and willing to pay is always relevant for a seller. (And vice versa for a buyer).