I just wrote out a nice, long explanation only to have my iPad freeze up. Oh well.
I'll just say that in 30+ years of being in the finance industry and my company probably acquiring credit on 50,000+ potential and actual customers, I never had a customer who didn't score, so your case is highly, highly unusual. And credit scoring only started being prominently used around the mid to late 90's. FICO was available, but it wasn't really used. Lenders went off mortgage payment history primarily with a second level view of consumer payment history (installment being more important than revolving credit) when determining credit worthiness. When Lenders started going strictly by credit scoring, I know many of us complained because it reduced people to a number rather than viewing their whole credit history, which we felt was unfair. I still do to some degree, but it's hard to fight city hall.
I think the lowest score you can have is 300 and top is 850. But regardless, just by trying to inquire of someone's credit, a score was assigned.
.
It's almost impossible to not have a credit score these days. Even if you don't have a mortgage, pay cash for cars, that sort of thing, almost everyone at some point has to pay for electric or water or a telephone, which, even if paid in cash, still result in a credit score. Essentially, you
almost have to live under a bridge to not have any sort of paper trail at all.
Almost.
I will note that a friend of mine was once considered "not scoreable," which is different from not actually having a score, though it's a subtle difference. Short version: he existed on paper, but when he got married, he just moved into the house his wife already had and he was never included on any paperwork: mortgage was in her name, electric was in her name, water was in her name, etc., etc. He had paid cash for a car and, at least on paper, carried zero debt of any sort, not even an electric bill, for about four years. He was paid in cash by his boss, but still got tax statements and paid taxes religiously. The boss simply believed in cash (and handwriting: all of his W2s and pay stubs and whatnot from work were meticulously hand-written with actual carbon paper by the boss' wife). After a few years of marriage and looking to have a couple of kids, they went to get an approval letter and even though her credit was stellar, he effectively didn't exist on paper. They acknowledged that he
previously had reasonably good credit, but because he actually had no activity for the previous four or five years, Experion (I think) said that they couldn't deliver a score for him to the lender.
This was ultimately rectified by him getting one of those pre-paid "credit" cards and using it for a few months, paying it off immediately, which essentially "resurrected" his previous credit score.
Now, I doubt very seriously that this is what happened with the DUmmie in question, unless he was actively trying to duck either debt collectors or legal proceedings, and even then it's dubious. After all, DUmmies lie, all the time.
