They check all kinds of things, not just credit. Criminal record, job history, salary history, education, etc. How much of that should a prospective employer be "allowed" to check before deciding to hire you? Or a renter check before letting you live in their house? In both cases, they are taking on real risk. How else can they reduce that risk, without doing checks?

That’s beside the point of my post, which was to counter the claim that essentially stated, “you are only opted in to credit bureau tracking because you made the choice to take advantage of a product that is not essential in life”

But the requirement for the credit check is from the bank, renter, employer, etc. They aren't being forced to do that, other than the economics of risk.

The tenant pool in lower income areas tend to have more issues. This is why landlords require background checks, pay stubs, credit score, references etc. Even start all of this, you can still get horrible tenants, but it certainly decreases the likelihood by a huge margin.

i have been renting in several countries, including the US and i have never been asked for a credit check, i have never seen or heard about that for jobs either. why would a job need a credit check? all i care is that you can do the work.

> why would a job need a credit check?

So they can weed applicants out. This is very common in the fire service. Applications can be 40 pages long and they want you to list each financial account, balances, limits, etc. It's ridiculous. But I know just why they're doing it. I also think such requirements are weeding out minority applicants.

sounds like a very shady and likely illegal thing to do

you'd think so but it's really quite common.

at least most agencies have stopped asking you to write down all of your social media accounts & passwords. or requiring you to add HR managers/etc as friends.