FICO is crap. All it does is indicate how well you borrow and pay it back. Your credit score should not be a measure of how well you "do what you say you are going to do" -- which is what it has become. The guy in this article is case-and-point--he had a run of bad luck.

There are better ways to measure one's reliability and maybe someone here can disrupt the transunion-equifax-experian trifecta or create a new business out of measuring candidate quality for all kinds of things (rentals, jobs, etc.) that doesn't rely on debt. Even the person who is self-made / cash-only has to contend with this buffoonery.