Marketdash
Back to News

Caller Tells Dave Ramsey She Followed His Advice and Paid Off Everything — Now Her Credit Score Is Zero and She Can't Get Approved

MarketDash Editorial Team
6 hours ago
A San Antonio woman called The Ramsey Show expecting sympathy after becoming debt-free tanked her credit score to zero. Instead, Dave Ramsey told her that was exactly the point. The collision between debt-free living and credit-based finance reveals why some choose to disappear from the system entirely.

Most people who call The Ramsey Show are looking for validation. They want Dave Ramsey to tell them they're doing great, that freedom from debt is just around the corner, that their sacrifice will pay off. Marsha from San Antonio called with a different energy entirely.

"We followed your University course, we paid off our house, we paid off our car," she told him. "And I went to get a silly charge card on TV, a shopping card, and we found out our credit score is zero. Our credit score was really, really low."

She wasn't celebrating. She was confused, maybe a little frustrated. Her bank told her the problem was that she didn't have any revolving credit. "It didn't work," she said. "Now what do we do?"

Ramsey didn't miss a beat. "I'm sorry — it did work. You paid off your house," he shot back. "The goal was to get out of debt, not get into debt. Correct?"

This is the strange paradox at the heart of Ramsey's philosophy. You follow the plan, eliminate all your debt, close your accounts, live on cash and you wind up invisible to the credit system. Not damaged. Not risky. Just gone. And when you try to re-enter that system, even for something small like a store card, the gatekeepers don't know what to do with you.

Marsha's banker suggested she get a secured credit card, the kind you fund with your own money to slowly rebuild a score. Ramsey was having none of it. "Of course he wants you to start using a credit card — he's a freaking banker!" he said. "Get out of debt. Stay out of debt. Don't go over there with the snake handlers and expect to get anything but bit by a snake."

When Marsha mentioned she didn't want to drain her retirement account to pay cash for a used car, Ramsey's response was blunt. "Then don't buy the car. That's simple. That's the rule. Pay cash for the car or don't buy the car — one of the two."

What Does a Zero Credit Score Actually Mean?

Here's the technical reality: you can't literally have a zero credit score. According to American Express, what Marsha experienced is called being "unscorable." When someone has no open accounts and no credit activity for at least six months, the scoring algorithms can't generate a number. There's nothing to measure. It's not that your credit is bad. It's that you don't exist in the system anymore.

Co-host Jade Warshaw shared her own version of this journey. After she and her husband paid off all their debt, she kept checking her credit score online, waiting for it to hit zero. "I'm sitting there waiting for my credit score to roll to zero, right? Because that's exciting," she said. But month after month, nothing changed. The free tracking site she was using hadn't updated and kept trying to sell her credit cards to "improve" her score. When she finally pulled her official report, it had rolled to zero.

Warshaw's point was clear: many free credit monitoring sites have a vested interest in keeping you worried about your score. They make money when you sign up for new credit products. A score of zero doesn't help their business model.

Ramsey added a crucial detail. "One hundred percent of the things showing up on your credit bureau report have to be closed and at a zero balance — otherwise you're just going to lower your credit score, not roll it to zero." Even one forgotten account or unresolved collection will keep you in the system, often with a terrible score in the 500s. To truly disappear, you need to close everything, pay everything off, and let six months pass without any activity or inquiries.

Is Being Unscorable Actually a Problem?

For Ramsey and his followers, having no credit score is a feature, not a bug. It's proof that you've stepped off the debt treadmill entirely. But it does create friction in a world designed around credit. Want to rent an apartment? Buy a car without cash? Get certain jobs that check credit? Being unscorable can complicate things.

Ramsey's advice for those situations is straightforward: find a way that doesn't require credit, or don't do it. Manual underwriting still exists for mortgages. You can show bank statements and employment history. Some lenders will work with you if you can prove income and stability. But it takes more effort, and not every institution will bother.

Marsha thought she was stuck because her score had disappeared. Ramsey's message was that she'd arrived exactly where she was supposed to be. "You got to exactly where you were trying to get to — only then, somebody that sells debt for a living didn't like it. Oh, shock," he said.

To Ramsey and the debt-free community, a credit score of zero isn't a crisis. It's a clean slate and a badge of financial independence. Whether that works for everyone is another question entirely, but for those who commit to the philosophy, being unscorable is the ultimate goal. The credit system may not like it, but that's kind of the point.

Back to News

Caller Tells Dave Ramsey She Followed His Advice and Paid Off Everything — Now Her Credit Score Is Zero and She Can't Get Approved

MarketDash Editorial Team
6 hours ago
A San Antonio woman called The Ramsey Show expecting sympathy after becoming debt-free tanked her credit score to zero. Instead, Dave Ramsey told her that was exactly the point. The collision between debt-free living and credit-based finance reveals why some choose to disappear from the system entirely.

Most people who call The Ramsey Show are looking for validation. They want Dave Ramsey to tell them they're doing great, that freedom from debt is just around the corner, that their sacrifice will pay off. Marsha from San Antonio called with a different energy entirely.

"We followed your University course, we paid off our house, we paid off our car," she told him. "And I went to get a silly charge card on TV, a shopping card, and we found out our credit score is zero. Our credit score was really, really low."

She wasn't celebrating. She was confused, maybe a little frustrated. Her bank told her the problem was that she didn't have any revolving credit. "It didn't work," she said. "Now what do we do?"

Ramsey didn't miss a beat. "I'm sorry — it did work. You paid off your house," he shot back. "The goal was to get out of debt, not get into debt. Correct?"

This is the strange paradox at the heart of Ramsey's philosophy. You follow the plan, eliminate all your debt, close your accounts, live on cash and you wind up invisible to the credit system. Not damaged. Not risky. Just gone. And when you try to re-enter that system, even for something small like a store card, the gatekeepers don't know what to do with you.

Marsha's banker suggested she get a secured credit card, the kind you fund with your own money to slowly rebuild a score. Ramsey was having none of it. "Of course he wants you to start using a credit card — he's a freaking banker!" he said. "Get out of debt. Stay out of debt. Don't go over there with the snake handlers and expect to get anything but bit by a snake."

When Marsha mentioned she didn't want to drain her retirement account to pay cash for a used car, Ramsey's response was blunt. "Then don't buy the car. That's simple. That's the rule. Pay cash for the car or don't buy the car — one of the two."

What Does a Zero Credit Score Actually Mean?

Here's the technical reality: you can't literally have a zero credit score. According to American Express, what Marsha experienced is called being "unscorable." When someone has no open accounts and no credit activity for at least six months, the scoring algorithms can't generate a number. There's nothing to measure. It's not that your credit is bad. It's that you don't exist in the system anymore.

Co-host Jade Warshaw shared her own version of this journey. After she and her husband paid off all their debt, she kept checking her credit score online, waiting for it to hit zero. "I'm sitting there waiting for my credit score to roll to zero, right? Because that's exciting," she said. But month after month, nothing changed. The free tracking site she was using hadn't updated and kept trying to sell her credit cards to "improve" her score. When she finally pulled her official report, it had rolled to zero.

Warshaw's point was clear: many free credit monitoring sites have a vested interest in keeping you worried about your score. They make money when you sign up for new credit products. A score of zero doesn't help their business model.

Ramsey added a crucial detail. "One hundred percent of the things showing up on your credit bureau report have to be closed and at a zero balance — otherwise you're just going to lower your credit score, not roll it to zero." Even one forgotten account or unresolved collection will keep you in the system, often with a terrible score in the 500s. To truly disappear, you need to close everything, pay everything off, and let six months pass without any activity or inquiries.

Is Being Unscorable Actually a Problem?

For Ramsey and his followers, having no credit score is a feature, not a bug. It's proof that you've stepped off the debt treadmill entirely. But it does create friction in a world designed around credit. Want to rent an apartment? Buy a car without cash? Get certain jobs that check credit? Being unscorable can complicate things.

Ramsey's advice for those situations is straightforward: find a way that doesn't require credit, or don't do it. Manual underwriting still exists for mortgages. You can show bank statements and employment history. Some lenders will work with you if you can prove income and stability. But it takes more effort, and not every institution will bother.

Marsha thought she was stuck because her score had disappeared. Ramsey's message was that she'd arrived exactly where she was supposed to be. "You got to exactly where you were trying to get to — only then, somebody that sells debt for a living didn't like it. Oh, shock," he said.

To Ramsey and the debt-free community, a credit score of zero isn't a crisis. It's a clean slate and a badge of financial independence. Whether that works for everyone is another question entirely, but for those who commit to the philosophy, being unscorable is the ultimate goal. The credit system may not like it, but that's kind of the point.