Sunday, July 25, 2010

Activity Request: Counter the Lies!!!

The following linked letter from the opposition tells you two things A) we have very formidable opposition that’s organized, well funded and has huge numbers B) they will stop at nothing including outright lies in order to kill passage of HR3149.

http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/News/Daily/Documents/ND072310_HR3149letter.pdf

We have to counter this garbage and we have to grow our numbers fast. Use the sample letter below and FLOOD the House Committee on Financial Services and their members with our counter points and the truth. Push this out to friends, neighbors, family, church groups, etc. . . . we need big numbers!!!!! Send it over and over and over until they are flooded with the facts instead of lies and misinformation. It’s the only way we’ll win . . . BE RELENTLESS and just a little bit OBNOXIOUS!

E-mail Letter to the Commitee:

http://financialservices.house.gov/contact/contact.shtml

E-mail Representative(s) on the House Committee on Financial Services . . .

1) See if YOUR Representative is one of the 71 members on the House Committee on Financial Services, search by State and District (via the link below)
http://financialservices.house.gov/singlepages.aspx?NewsID=397

You’ll need to have your full 9 digit zip code handy. Use the following link to look it up if you don’t already know it.
http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp

[Sample Letter]

I recently came across a propaganda letter being pushed by opposition groups who want you to believe outright lies and misinformation in regard to HR3149. So you’ll be fully informed and able to counter their lies, I provide the truth as follows:

1) Almost half the entire U.S. workforce now has ruined credit. Even FICO estimates the number to be at least 70 million, but the real number is closer to 100 million. That number alone says one thing: half of the U.S. workforce is not a bunch of “thieves and fraud risks” which makes their entire argument null and void. This is about profits for the credit bureaus and intrusion of personal privacy by corporations.

2) The letter states that employment credit checks are included in only 15% of background checks. Where is the audit, where is the documentation to back that statement up? There is none because it is an outright lie! 60 percent of all jobs and 80+ percent of all white collar jobs require a credit check just for the right to work. Even SHRM backs-up the 60 percent figure and they are opposed to the legislation. The truth is that you don’t work anywhere in America with bad credit unless it’s shoveling manure in a barn somewhere.

3) The letter claims that employment credit checks are only used “responsibly.” Who regulates that? Who’s to say what’s “responsible?” Do they get training on how to evaluate a credit report? No! It’s an arbitrary judgment call. Ask yourself this question: is it “responsible” to cull out half of the resumes and applicants via a credit check even before you start to review their application? That’s what is being done and any honest HR person will verify that fact. It costs $8 to run a check which is cheaper than the hours required to do their jobs – which is to truly evaluate applicants.

4) The letter claims that people are given a chance to explain. That may be the biggest lie of all. Bad credit = moving on to the next applicant in the pile, plain and simple. It’s easy because there are 5 applicants for every job that exists. Furthermore, why should anyone have to explain their credit report to an employer . . . the applicant is not borrowing money or applying for credit – they just want to work! It’s a gross invasion of every Americans’ privacy!

5) The biggest and most fluffy lie in the letter is the reference to fraud examiners stating that “living beyond one’s means” leads to fraud. At least 86 percent of all Americans “live beyond their means” and that probably includes you. Even in sworn testimony during the Oregon hearings where similar legislation is now law, a TransUnion executive says there is ZERO STATISTIAL EVIDENCE that a bad credit report leads to fraud and theft in the workplace. Watch the video for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypwgmjZXow Did American CEOs like Bernard Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, Kenneth Lay, Bernard Madoff, Richard Fuld or Ken Lewis “live beyond their million dollar means” or were they just thieves? Did they have their credit checked? No! Only common citizens have to endure that indignity and violation of their right to privacy.

While I could continue pointing out more of their lies within their misinformation campaign, I’ll simply rest with the five points above. During the second worst economic disaster in American history, employment credit checks amount to class genocide. We’re already suffering from corporate overreach with BP and the collapse of Wall Street and now an American can’t get a job because Wall Street ruined our credit reports? This is the most inhuman form of oppression to befall the American worker since slavery. We formed American in large part to flee debtors’ prisons and these opposition groups want to return Americans to those prisons. Bad credit = no job and no job = bad credit and it’s a potential death sentence for 100 million Americans with 30 million of them under or unemployed.

Don’t buy the lies and propaganda by the opposition. You were voted in by the American people, NOT corporations. Do the right thing and pass HR3149 NOW before more people die and suffer needlessly.

[End Sample Letter]

4 comments:

  1. Even if you think this does not effect you or someone you know....you have to agree that corporations are abusing our form of government to manipulate their will on the people instead of the other way around. If you REALLY believe corporations are destroying our nation, it's economy and our rights then PLEASE send this letter out because we need to stop the lies and the corporate interference of government all in the name of incredible greed.

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  2. What happend while we were all sleeping at the wheel? Corporations putting people into office and then telling them what to vote for or against. We should make them wear outfits like the NASCAR drivers and put the logos of their corporate sponsors on their outfits for all to see.

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  3. This is a super precise letter that gets to the point. I have already sent a letter to the house finance committee; I will send this one too. Thanks for the good work.

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  4. I posted the information from this page and the link to this page on the "Republicans are idiots arguing with them is a waste of time" facebook group page. I've said before and I'll say it again. This issue is so important to me. I have experienced the downward spiral snowball effect of identity theft in my life. My Dad scammed me and my sister for years by creating LLCs that he would have us sign so he could use our social security numbers to by condos, houses and rent apartments. He would tell us that he was working on a big business deal and when he got the money he wanted us to have instant access. We were young and gullible. Of course we trusted him because he is our Dad. I can't begin to tell you the devastation this has caused in my life. I just found out what he was doing 3 years ago. I have to contact the FTC again because there are still mortgages on my report that don't belong to me. Credit reports should not be a part of any job application-- no matter what the job is.

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