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Comment by alisonatwork | Hacker News Reader

This exact same story pretty much happened to me when I moved to Canada about 15 years ago. I wasn't able to get a credit card for years, and couldn't rent an apartment without a guarantor, despite the fact that I was full-time employed in the tech industry, had zero debt, plenty of savings etc.

What I took from the experience (especially after going through various iterations of it in several other countries) is that most communities are biased against migrants/newcomers. Egalitarianism would be nice, but in practice nepotism and chauvinism are encoded in policy.

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Maybe this is why Europe is so popular with migrants? I've lived in four European countries and never had anything like that. To rent a place you just need to pay 1 or 2 months deposit up front. I've never heard of anyone being denied to buy a car with cash (but we don't use cheques... the payment is either successful or not - it doesn't need to clear).

Loans are a different story, it varies a lot - but in my country for example, after working 6 months in a full-time job you can get a mortgage without issues. All they care about is how much you are earning, and that you don't have any other debts so that you couldn't afford the repayments.

IIRC some countries, like UK, have a similar thing like Credit Score, mostly used for what type of loans they can give you, max credit card limits, and other financial products, but won't affect at all to buy a car in cash or renting an apartment.

For me it's crazy not being able to rent a place even paying a whole year beforehand.

It’s not a bias against immigrants, it’s a bias against the unknown.

I’ve had an identical experience as an 19 year old college dropout trying to rent an apartment and buy a car with no established credit history. It at least 5 years to qualify for my first unsecured card with $1,000 credit on a 6-figure salary. I could not qualify for any vehicle, not even a used cheap Honda Civic with my lack of history, and I had to play the Craigslist rental game for years as well.

There's a small difference... at 19, you truly didn't have a credit history. A middle-aged immigrant from Canada likely has a credit history, but for some reason, it's not portable across arbitrary boundaries. Canada-US is a pretty solid example... We're neighbors, we both have stable economies, modern banking, etc. From a consumer's perspective, there's no good reason a credit history shouldn't carry across that border.

> for some reason, it's not portable across arbitrary boundaries

The reason being that you can't be held accountable across borders. I may have good credit in Canada, but my German landlord can't sue me there if I fall behind on rent.

That's assuming a person's creditworthiness and trustworthiness changes as they cross a border. I tend to doubt that happens.

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