What do you guys think of this letter..? This is very long read, so please move on if you dont feel like read?

[gofraidh34]

Ok, I am looking for a place to live. In one of the ads on craigslist, a landlord posted his property up for rent and in the ad he made a comment: "do not reply if your credit is not worthy"........... I am so sick of this crap! I am writing them a letter and this is what I wrote....please, what do you guys think?

Hello,

Please read all the way through:

I came across your ad while looking for a place to live and noticed a statement in yours (as with many other ads, but yours being the most blunt) "do not email me if your credit is not worthy of consideration". I just want to say to you, I had a successful career as a junior accountant moving my way up in the world when the economy hit real hard and my company (which is a fortune 500 company) were one of the first of many to do massive lay-offs. In Feburary of 2009, my company laid of 2500 workers in one swoop , of course myself being included. Do you know it took me about almost 3 years to find a job making what I was making before? I lost my apartment, my car and have a significant amount of credit card debt. My credit is shot to hell but I am doing better now financially thank god but I cannot find a place to live in a safe neighborhood because of credit checks and to see your email just rubs salt into the wound. I

I just wanted to say, I never EVER thought this would happen to me. It was complete hell what I went through, losing everything I worked for. I really cannot even get into detail about it because it will send me back into depression just thinking about it. I am 33 years old, have a college education and worked very hard to get where I was before the economy hit. I grew up pretty much poor with a single mom who did her best and when the economy hit, I had no one to help me with the slack in my bills. I was lucky enough my mom took me in and fed me until I got back on my feet, for a lot of people who didn’t even have that. I guess my question is what does credit have to do with renting a home? I had pretty good credit before everything happened (740 score) but that doesn't make me less at risk for a financial disaster. Anyone can lose their job , get seriously hurt or sick and a good credit score is not going to prevent any of that. A good credit score doesn’t make a person a good person. I mean look at the sickness that went on in Penn State for the love of God. I'm sure Sandusky, Paterno, Shultz and Curly all had good credit scores.

I hope one day credit checks will be deemed as discriminatory because basically it is saying : " If you are and always going to be of perfect health, lucky enough to never lose your job, blessed enough to never get seriously hurt or sick, then and only then, you can live in our home and nice neighborhood otherwise you're out of luck".

I take great offense to the statement in your ad "....your credit is worthy of consideration". After going through what I went through myself, I guess I was taught a lesson in all of this ,( you know when I lost everything) and that is the only credit report that I am worried about is the one I have with God because material things and money can be taken away from you in an instant and in the eyes of God, so long as I am a good person, my credit will ALWAYS and FOREVER be worthy in the eyes of God. I have the worse credit in the world but I can honestly say I have never loved myself and others more then I do right now and I'll take that any day then living in your neighborhood. God bless.





By the way yahoo readers, this is all true about my life. thanks for reading, please let me know your opinions.

[celeste]

My opinion? The landlord's not going to care about your life story.

He's not your friend. He's not your priest. He's not your mommy or daddy. He's IN BUSINESS. All he wants to make sure is that he is dealing with someone who is FINANCIALLY CAPABLE OF ENTERING INTO A PROFITABLE BUSINESS ARRANGEMENT.

Can you pay your bills, yes or no. That's the *only* thing a landlord needs to know about you.

[adare]

You asked for an opinion, here it is.

What do you hope to gain by sending this letter? Do you think it will make any difference to the landlord? Are you planning to send similar letters to any and all landlords who make credit worthiness statements in their advertisements? What about car dealers who offer financing to "well qualified buyers"?

You are correct that a credit score isn't a predictor of what will happen in the future, because anything can happen to anyone at any time. But for a businessman (which is what a landlord is), it's a risk indicator as to how likely a person would be to default on their rent in the next year. It's really no different than a car dealer deciding not to finance a car for you because you are considered a bad risk.

Lots of people are in your same situation-they lost their jobs, fell behind on bills, lost their homes, cars, etc. And none of them ever thought it could happen to them. While a person might be compassionate about your situation, that doesn't mean they want to take the risk of the consequences if you have another job loss. It's not personal, even though it may feel that way to you. You don't know what that landlord has gone through himself as far as how many people have ended up losing jobs, not paying rent, then he has to go through the expense and trouble of a formal eviction, deal with the damage to the property from angry tenants, etc. As far as his wording of the ad, he doesn't want to go through the hassle of screening people, showing the place just to have it be someone with a credit score of 500 that he wouldn't rent to anyway. He has that right.

If you want to send this letter, go ahead. But I can't believe it will make any difference to this person. He doesn't care about your personal life or sob story, because everyone has one. If it will make you feel better to have done it, then you can feel better. But it isn't going to change anything. I'm glad things are going better for you and that you at least have a place to stay with your mother. Good luck.