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Ask them how big God's dick is. Tell them you're serious. Make then explain how that's a ridiculous question. Then ask them: if God's gender identity isn't tied to genitals, why do they insist on doing it?

I do think a lot of things called pizza should be called flatbreads or something, but this is the first time I've ever expressed that opinion. It's just not that important.

You're only misunderstanding them because financial literacy is so poor that there are widely held, but ridiculous, theories on what makes them move. And you have no reason to know yourself, you just hear the misinformation.

It's pretty straight forward. When you're 18 and obviously don't have a history, any credit card you can get will have a low limit and you will probably need a co-signer for something like a car loan. After you demonstrate that you use these things responsibility, your limits go up, you qualify for things on your own, and your rates go down. Your credit report is just a list of these things and your score is just so lenders don't have to read the whole thing. But they can: before medical debt was removed from these it was common for a lender to see a low score, look at why, see your only black marks were medical related, and issue an approval anyway. Many big issuers even get their own special scores tailored to their business so they don't even have to do things like that.

We don't have gov. sponsored restructuring but we do have a court process called bankruptcy, and there are a couple different kinds, where you can get debt beyond your ability to pay wiped out, with some restrictions. This disappears from your credit report after seven years, but it doesn't mean you can't get credit in the meantime, just less and higher rates.

It's nothing more than an objective history of your credit usage so approvals aren't subject to the whim of the issuer.

I'm still not following. You said "we just mark if there's any default on earlier loans and then evaluate on individual basis (in-person) if so", but now you're saying "your actions with regards to how you pay or how many loans you have or if you do or do not have a credit card... none of that changes your situation".

So are you evaluated on past behavior or not? If you are, how is that different than a credit report? If not, how is it determined if "you (either) get loans or you don't"?

It's also "not something people here have to think about" here also, you might check it every now and again to make sure there isn't anything you don't recognize that might indicate identity theft, but that's it, unless you get turned down. I expect people where you are would also think about it if they're turned down.

There are many paths to earning profit for a credit issuer. Debt traps are one of the more predatory paths. Some credit issuers want to issue high rated bonds that provide low, but safe, income over a long period. Some don't get profit from interest at all, high-end reward cards, for example. I haven't paid a penny of credit card interest in decades yet I'm issued cards that provide me with over $20k in benefits every year, these companies make almost all of their money off swipe fees charged to the merchants and partnership deals.

It absolutely is "a measure of how likely are you to pay off your debt", because that is "a measure of how likely you are to earn creditors money."

It's not some grand conspiracy. It's a record of previous behavior to predict future behavior to determine if you fit their business model.

I'm sorry, I don't think I'm following. Because it sounds like you're saying you have a computerized database that keeps track of the credit you have and whether or not you pay on time, but, despite that, you don't think you have a credit scoring system. Is it just because whatever system you have doesn't have a number attached (that you know of)? If so, do you think that's functionally different?

And the reason is because your mix of credit changes. The formula says you're lower risk if you use more types of credit responsibly. Having a mortgage, a car loan, and some revolving credit is better than just two of the three.

We used to do that too. If you wanted any kind of credit, mortgage, car loan, personal loan, business loan, etc.: you'd go to your local bank branch and apply in person (or maybe get it at a car dealership or other business offering payments) and they would evaluate you on previous business, in theory.

What actually happened is if you walked in with the wrong skin color, went to the wrong church, didn't play golf with the right people, etc. you wouldn't get approved. Now we have an objective risk assessment formula; the development of which has been a great improvement for marginalized groups.

It doesn't sound correct because it's not. Financial literacy in the U.S. is awful and the ridiculous misconceptions about credit scores that propagate are one symptom of that.

I'm the friend.

Oh yeah, I forgot they did that. I'll check it out.

What's the abbreviation? Nothing is coming to mind.