Background/Credit Check, Bankruptcy

[markjrn]

As I type this, a colleague of mine is filling out an application for a position at another facility. The background check states that it checks EVERYTHING (pretty personal!) including bankruptcy, which she declared a couple of years ago.

She was wondering if she needs to worry about not getting this job because of the bankruptcy? How much does credit play into whether or not someone lands a job? It seems like it shouldn't make any difference.

Thanks for any input. Unfortunately I don't have much help to offer her.

[HARRN2b]

Personally, I am suprised that their has not been an uprising in this country over what is going on with our personal lives. Everything is tracked. Your bank accounts. Employers checking your credit. Everybody wants your social security #. I called American Express over a dispute and they wanted my soc#. Turns out the guy I was talking to was in Indian. Oh and he had an "american name". I would have never known. His accent was perfect and his name was Shawn. Yeah right! I just asked where he was located. Cancelled Amex right away! Have you ever heard of the story of the frog. The water keeps getting turned up on the frog but he does not notice. Yeah, its getting a little hotter, but oh well, he thinks he can handle it. Then one day, it is way to hot and he dies. That is where I am starting to believe that America is. One day, Americans will wake up and every right they ever had will be gone. Very sad that no one notices.

[Grannie60]

So very true

[indigo girl]

Sure it is. It speaks to character.

------------ It speaks volumes about the character of the organization that would want to know such a thing, but nothing about your abilities as a nurse. You have the right to privacy. ( This is one of the reasons why the very wealthy use trusts, to ensure privacy in their financial affairs.) Would you ever question an employer about their credit and financial background? They also can go bankrupt, and you'll be the last one to be paid. I have worked for more than one agency whose checks have bounced. There's something so elitist about all of this. It's too easy to condemn a whole class of people you know nothing about.

[buildingmyfaith57]

name a company that really cares what the law says? or employees rights?

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

There's something so elitist about all of this. It's too easy to condemn a whole class of people you know nothing about.

Nothing elitist about it at at all. I simply believe in paying the debts one has incurred through giving one's word to the lender that they will be paid back. Trust, honor, integrity - they mean something to me. Of course, if one believes that any standards at all are elitist then, yes, it's elitist.

And I have been confronted with huge medical bills. I know many others who have as well. Some of us remortgaged our homes to take out the equity, some lived off of credit cards and took second jobs to pay the bills, others withdrew retirement savings. Some just worked out payment plans and paid a chunk every stinking month.

We used the services. We benefitted for the services. We did our best to pay for the services.

And you have no idea what I know about or from what background i come. That's a tad presumptuous.

[indigo girl]

And you have no idea what I know about or from what background i come. That's a tad presumptuous.

I see your point, and presume nothing about you, Suesquatch. I know of people who have had terrible things happen to them, and they will not fit into the category of good credit risk. To penalize them by denying a job where they are not handling money such as in nursing, is unjust. It may be one way of judging character, but people's lives are complex. It's too narrow a view, and this is not meant personally. A friend was left destitute with six dependents when her husband fled (from the IRS), she lost everything, and then they garnished her wages. She had to live in an abandoned building until she got back on her feet. She didn't know anything about the IRS problem and they wouldn't believe her. Was her credit record destroyed? Luckily for her, she already had a job. In her case, her privacy was nonexistent anyway after they took her wages. The right to privacy is a Constitutional right for good reason. No one should be forced to give it up to pay the rent. There are other ways to judge character and competentcy.

I can see drug screens and criminal background checks, but credit and financial background checks for nurses, never. We may just have to agree to disagree over this. There are too many good people who would be harmed by this kind of thinking.

[ZZTopRN, BSN, RN]

UNDECIDED7:

I was just hired by a corporate hospital and was surprised that my employers references were not called. However, I had to give them pay stubs of my previous employment. Also, I was hired within a week, pending background check and FBI. I have gone through FBI checks, as when renewing your license and other jobs and it took quite a long time for these FBI checks.

I was also curious when I took a statement of my tb test to employee health that read "PPD negative." It was not accepted because the number of centimeters of induration was not on it. However, what was strange, the NP went into another room and found that I had had a two-step tb last year from another hospital corporation I worked for. Is this a data base registry or something to do with communicable diseases and the health department?

[smk1, LPN]

Nothing elitist about it at at all. I simply believe in paying the debts one has incurred through giving one's word to the lender that they will be paid back. Trust, honor, integrity - they mean something to me. Of course, if one believes that any standards at all are elitist then, yes, it's elitist.

And I have been confronted with huge medical bills. I know many others who have as well. Some of us remortgaged our homes to take out the equity, some lived off of credit cards and took second jobs to pay the bills, others withdrew retirement savings. Some just worked out payment plans and paid a chunk every stinking month.

We used the services. We benefitted for the services. We did our best to pay for the services.

And you have no idea what I know about or from what background i come. That's a tad presumptuous.

And what if you do not have a home to mortgage? What if there are reasons you can't take out a second job? (childcare, none available, no one will hire you because of your financial situation, no car and buses don't run at night etc...) What if you don't have retirement plans to draw money out of? What if you don't have any family or friends in a position to help you, or any left at all? These are very real problems for millions of people in this country. Now i am as frustrated as the next person about credit use and abuse and taking advantage of bankruptcy to screw your creditors, but their are a significant amount of people in this country who have damaged credit and do not fall under this category. Medical bills don't have to total 20k or more to ruin a person. A person with no insurance making 10 bucks and hour that gets pneumonia and has to be hospitalized for a few days will recieve a bill probably under 10k that they still will not be able to pay. Yes they can make payment arrangements in many cases, but what if the payment the hospital wants is too much for their meager budget to handle per month? God forbid anything else happens like they lose their job, or their car breaks down, their rent gets raised or they have to move and come up with 1st, last and deposit for the new place etc... The point is that people who are seeking a job and have a good work history should not be denied employment because of their credit history. You have no idea what resources were "truly" available to the person to utilize and what the exact circumstances were. It is easy to monday morning quarterback on what they could/should have done but really what are we going to do, deny employment to all who have a stain on their credit reports? These people still have to earn money to live, or should they all just apply for welfare and medicare and live off of that and let the government raise everyone elses taxes to pay for it thereby decreasing the salary of the few working folks we have left? Sorry this is ridiculous. Finding out if the person will be a good employee can be evidenced by their WORK history and references. Unless the person is going to be handling money, this credit checking nonsense is completely unnecessary.

[markjrn]

And what if you do not have a home to mortgage? What if there are reasons you can't take out a second job? (childcare, none available, no one will hire you because of your financial situation, no car and buses don't run at night etc...) What if you don't have retirement plans to draw money out of? What if you don't have any family or friends in a position to help you, or any left at all? These are very real problems for millions of people in this country. Now i am as frustrated as the next person about credit use and abuse and taking advantage of bankruptcy to screw your creditors, but their are a significant amount of people in this country who have damaged credit and do not fall under this category. Medical bills don't have to total 20k or more to ruin a person. A person with no insurance making 10 bucks and hour that gets pneumonia and has to be hospitalized for a few days will recieve a bill probably under 10k that they still will not be able to pay. Yes they can make payment arrangements in many cases, but what if the payment the hospital wants is too much for their meager budget to handle per month? God forbid anything else happens like they lose their job, or their car breaks down, their rent gets raised or they have to move and come up with 1st, last and deposit for the new place etc... The point is that people who are seeking a job and have a good work history should not be denied employment because of their credit history. You have no idea what resources were "truly" available to the person to utilize and what the exact circumstances were. It is easy to monday morning quarterback on what they could/should have done but really what are we going to do, deny employment to all who have a stain on their credit reports? These people still have to earn money to live, or should they all just apply for welfare and medicare and live off of that and let the government raise everyone elses taxes to pay for it thereby decreasing the salary of the few working folks we have left? Sorry this is ridiculous. Finding out if the person will be a good employee can be evidenced by their WORK history and references. Unless the person is going to be handling money, this credit checking nonsense is completely unnecessary.

:yeahthat:

Very well stated!

[Sheri257]

but really what are we going to do, deny employment to all who have a stain on their credit reports?

There are different degrees of "bad credit." If there are only a couple of marks then, that's one thing. If someone hasn't paid a single bill in seven years then ... it's obviously a character issue.

I've lent a lot of money to people and didn't get paid back. They were able to pay, they just didn't want to. When it's YOUR money on the line ... it does change your perspective on the issue.

What about the financial position those people put me in when they didn't pay me back? What about the money I had to borrow to cover my bills because they screwed me over?

I never lent money to anybody ever again ... regardless of how much "need" they were in ... whether they were family or whomever because ... I knew what a hassle it was to try to get it back. And I knew I'd never get it back.

That's the facts of life with credit. People will give you all of these excuses ... over and over again ... not to pay. The excuses are running rampant right here on this thread. And, in the end, you're the one who's screwed for trying to help people out.

People think they don't have to pay bills because there's no consequences. Well ... now there's consequences ... and it's about time.

With what I've been through, I'd run a credit report on a prospective employee in a second. Because it IS a reflection of character.

:typing

[smk1, LPN]

There are different degrees of "bad credit." If there are only a couple of marks then, I think that's one thing. If someone hasn't paid a single bill in seven years then ... I do think it's a character issue.

I've lent a lot of money to people and didn't get paid back. They were able to pay, they just didn't want to. When it's YOUR money on the line ... it does change your perspective on the issue.

What about the financial position those people put me in when they didn't pay me back? What about the money I had to borrow to cover my bills because they screwed me over?

I never lent money to anybody ever again ... regardless of how much "need" they were in ... whether they were family or whomever because ... I knew what a hassle it was to try to get it back. And I knew I'd never get it back.

That's the facts of life with credit. People will give you all of these excuses ... over and over again ... not to pay. The excuses are running rampant right here on this thread. And, in the end, you're the one who's screwed for trying to help people out.

With what I've been through, I'd run a credit report on a prospective employee in a second. Because it IS a reflection of character.

:typing

When you have personal knowledge of their ability to pay something back that paints quite a different picture. A human resources person isn't necessarily going to know that info. Now if it is clear from their credit report that they keep buying on credit at jewlery stores, clothing etc.. while they have tons of collections and late payments outstanding, that would paint a picture similar to what you have experienced. however if a person has a bad credit report because they had a loss (personal, professional etc..) their credit history could show the same score as the folks in the above category yet they are paying off their debts as they get back on their feet, or maybe they filed a banruptcy, yet ARE paying back the CC companies (many do this). Or maybe they have collections from a few years ago that have never been taken off though they have been taken care of. The fact is we have no idea the ins and outs of peoples situations and just blanketly deciding that a bad credit score means bad character is unfair and wrong. Again where are we drawing the line here? Are people with credit scores under say 600 going to become just unemployable? What happens to them? That is the situation, that i am concerned about, and if and when they end up on public assistance because they can't get a job, then these folks who could be working to put money into the system are now taking money out of it because we have lost our common sense.

[joejoe101]

I was filing out an application for a job in Atlanta, GA and they do credit checks, but they claimed on the application that it is for those who will be handling money and for those who get relocation assistance upon hire. I agree that this is a definite violation of our privacy. Plus, being a poor college student about to graduate, my credit isn't the best, so this worries me as well.