"I find society's obsession with credit scores completely insane." Spoken like somebody who has never been raped due to a low credit score. Due to identity th

"I find society's obsession with credit scores completely insane." Spoken like somebody who has never been raped due to a low credit score. Due to identity theft that took me over two years to clear up, my credit score was temporarily in the upper 500's back around 2007. Obviously, now it's all cleared up and back to normal, but my God, those of us on the normal credit scale are clueless as to how expensive bad credit is. EVERYTHING costs more when you have bad credit. You are perceived to be a risk, and that risk is priced into anything that involves a long term commitment of payment. Move? You will pay a higher rent at some places, or simply a higher security deposit. Activating utilities? The power or water company will want a few hundred dollars down. Want to switch cell phone providers? Oh wait, your credit sucks so you need to give us a $200 payment on top of the normal fees. Want car insurance? Guess what, on top of that extra high car payment, you will have an extra high car insurance payment. See where I'm going here? All of these extra "taxes" you pay due to being a quantified risk exact a huge opportunity cost. Many companies use bad credit as an "excuse" to charge you more. Others have a very valid reason to make you pay a risk tax. There are numerous cases where credit score is not statistically connected to risk, particularly with car insurance, but they will charge more nevertheless.