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Comment by everdrive | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, you actually never get signed up for these credit services until you get a credit card. So all the things people tell you “build credit” (eg: pay your bills on time, pay your rent, etc.) don’t actually “do” anything. There’s no credit score to attach to them, so they just go off into the ether. I built credit a bit late in life and it was a struggle to get started. At this point, I kind of wish I’d just avoided building credit altogether. I wouldn’t be in any of these systems.

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This isn't the case. You get signed up for these credit services when anyone makes reports about you to them. This can be, for example, your landlord. Paying rent does not indeed affect a credit score, but credit scores are separate products from credit reports. You have a right to your credit report annually, but you have no right to know your FICO (or other such) credit score; they're proprietary products.

Basically, these companies will build profiles on anyone whose information gets reported to them, even if those profiles do not include a credit score.

Not having credit means you’ll never get a mortgage, auto loan, etc.

So if you don't anticipate needing a mortgage or car loan, could you get rid of credit cards and perhaps cut down your online footprint? The question is how you would pay for stuff — are debit cards just as bad? Cash is being phased out at some stores so that's not always an option. I guess you could load up my Apple Pay straight from your bank and use that instead of a credit card?

Debit cards are (typically) connected to a checking account, and most banks and credit unions use the credit reporting agency ChexSystems to check for a history of checking account infractions and report infractions there as well. However, accounts in good standing aren't typically reported. So once your account opening falls off the report, assuming you don't kite checks or overdraft, your report will be empty. I think overdrafts likely need to be frequent or left unresolved for a long enough time to get on your report too, but I'm not 100% sure.

Some banks will run a credit report from other agencies while opening too, but if you don't ask for or refuse any credit cards offered, you should have an empty report from them, once everything falls off.

Interesting! So what you're giving up is the 2% cash back, and purchase protection that credit cards offer, in exchange for having privacy?

Yeah, debit cards interchange is much lower as I understand it, so there's no room to give big rewards. I think purchase protection is, in theory, equivalent or close, but debit cards presume the transaction is good and hold your money, whereas credit cards are more of a review your bill and decide if you're going to pay.

But if you don't want to have a credit profile, then you can't use credit.

At least one debit card kicks back 1%. Look around.

Some lenders still do "manual underwriting" for mortgages.

So instead of blindly trusting your credit score as the measure of your ability to repay a loan, a human looks at your situation - income, other debts, etc, and makes a judgement call. It's more paperwork and slower, but it definitely exists.

You can get a mortgage without a credit score. It is called manual underwriting.

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