When an employer does a credit check, they are looking NOT for the score, but for something on there that would prevent that person from working for them. For example, if you owe them money… or if you owe a partner company money… and if your new job would enable you to simply “write off” your bad debt. How about this… a judgement against you for embezzling funds from your previous employer? You won’t become head accountant of this new company with something like that on your credit report.

On the other hand, apartment rentals look at how much you earn vs. how much you make. If you have a lot of bills but no job, they aren’t going to rent to you, because you’re going to not be able to pay your rent. It isn’t the amount of debt you owe, but whether or not the landlord feels you can afford the rent. They also might take into consideration any judgements from prior landlords for things like damage to your old apartments, or skipping out on your lease, etc. Those things are located on a credit report, and they are the whole reason landlords look at your report to begin with… they don’t care what your score is.

As the debts get older the creditors do not pay as much attention, but look to see if any of the more current debts are being paid off. If John Doe is not paying any debts off, John Doe needs to get a secured credit card which reports to the credit reporting agencies and use it and pay it monthly. Secured credit cards are secured by your own personal deposits, so John Doe can get that. Limit is the same as his deposit.

If Mr. Doe is really serious about turning over that new leaf, then he should pull all three of his credit reports and see what is indeed on them. If he is infact making every effort to pay his bills, then he can start by sending what are known as “Goodwill Letters” to his creditors in an attempt to have them remove bad marks from his credit files. It may or may not work, but any improvements that Mr. Doe can make to his credit reports will go a long way in improving his situation.

Repairing bad credit takes time and a lot of determination and hard work, but the rewards of doing so can be reaped in very short order if done correctly. I dont like to link people to credit repair sites, but if Mr. Doe wants to learn as much as possible about how credit works, credit scores and credit repair, then have him visit the forums over at and start reading.

2 years ago I was in the same spot as Mr. Doe, and with the help of the people on the site I mention above, I went from not having a score to having a credit score in the mid 600’s after just 18 months. It can be done =)

Hope this helps.