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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

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Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#21

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sailfast wrote: post #14

This is quite a useful write-up and I love the way it's written. Thank you. If you are in the United States you also have an option to file a complaint with their government regulator. Consumer Financial protections bureau has a complaint form prominently featured on their website, as does the FTC for non-financial parts. Believe FDIC does for banks as well. Worth a shot and establishes a paper trail quickly!

Also, find your state financial regulator. Mine is the New York Department of Financial Services and they have teeth.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#22

Post by jaclaz »

lettergram wrote: post #16
brndnmtthws wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "save money by spending money!!" argument is nonsense. People have just been brainwashed into conspicuous consumption to prop up the economic metrics.

Here's a brief list of where I use credit cards (which I always pay off monthly): - Car payments (they let me use credit cards with no fee, >$9 / month rewards) - utilities ($1 fee, with >$1 rewards) - Food (>$20 / month rewards) - Gas (>$5 / month) There are more, but that's what $40 / month. If you then use a churning method to get more points, like opening a new card where you spend $4000 in three months get $500…

>There are more, but that's what $40 / month.

Help me understand, US$ 40 in rewards agains a monthly spending of?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#23

Post by harryh »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #11
patio11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not care about your credit rating but your credit rating, unfortunately, cares about you. Do you want to rent an apartment in the United States? You will, in many geographical markets, expect to have credit pulled as a matter of course. This is partly to determine ability to pay and partly to determine whether you are socially established; "I have mountains of money, why would I need credit ?" is something…

I have rented several apartments over the years (mostly in and around San Francisco) and have never once had my credit history checked by any of the rentees. I have a car which I own completely (no loan) and I pay the absolute minimum amount of insurance required in California, which amounts to about $264/year. I'm not saying credit doesn't matter, but the more you can do to limit your attack surface, the less likely…

I can safely publish my SSN without giving one single fuck.

You should do so right here.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#24

Post by eli »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #6
argonaut wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in many cases using credit will save you money. Two examples would be credit cards with their rewards (as long as you never pay interest) and house/car loans if you manage to get a low rate and invest what you don't pay up front.

The "save money by spending money!!" argument is nonsense. People have just been brainwashed into conspicuous consumption to prop up the economic metrics.

No, the scam is that all other shoppers are subsidizing your reward points in the form of slightly higher prices.

There are some apartments around here that let you pay rent by credit card. You'd be foolish not to take advantage of that and save at least 1% on your rent.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#25

Post by bga »

altotrees wrote: post #15
patio11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not care about your credit rating but your credit rating, unfortunately, cares about you. Do you want to rent an apartment in the United States? You will, in many geographical markets, expect to have credit pulled as a matter of course. This is partly to determine ability to pay and partly to determine whether you are socially established; "I have mountains of money, why would I need credit ?" is something…

This is spot on. I didn't care about my credit score for a long time...until I did. An autopay error from one bank account to another resulted in a late payment and a 50 point drop. Coincidentally, I also needed to rent an apartment and apply for a small car loan. Both of these things were made much more difficult, even with just a 50 point ding. The score recovered quickly and I learned my lesson. It was somewhat ey…

I suppose the information is hidden to prevent gaming the system. As someone mentioned in another thread, they took out a loan for $1000, sat on it and just paid it off. Credit score goes up with zero risk for just the cost of interest. If the algorithm were exposed, it would be easier to game.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#26

Post by brndnmtthws »

harryh wrote: post #23
brndnmtthws wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have rented several apartments over the years (mostly in and around San Francisco) and have never once had my credit history checked by any of the rentees. I have a car which I own completely (no loan) and I pay the absolute minimum amount of insurance required in California, which amounts to about $264/year. I'm not saying credit doesn't matter, but the more you can do to limit your attack surface, the less likely…

I can safely publish my SSN without giving one single fuck. You should do so right here.

can and should are orthogonal.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#28

Post by sillysaurus3 »

tptacek wrote: post #17
patio11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not care about your credit rating but your credit rating, unfortunately, cares about you. Do you want to rent an apartment in the United States? You will, in many geographical markets, expect to have credit pulled as a matter of course. This is partly to determine ability to pay and partly to determine whether you are socially established; "I have mountains of money, why would I need credit ?" is something…

This was a really excellent post, the best I've seen you write up this material, and among your top 5 posts ever. Having said that, I'm tentatively going to disagree. I made a conscious, somewhat coerced choice in my early 20s never to rely on revolving credit. A combination of random course-of-business (of course resolved) delinquencies and no history of revolving credit resulted in my having relatively poor credit.…

I mean, you're rich. The normal rules don't really apply. Your poor credit sounds like my poor credit, but it has a pretty big impact on my life.

You once mentioned you paid out of pocket to get your family member some kind of medical procedure. I think it was a CT scan? Anyone who can do that isn't really in the same class.

Here's one way it matters: every year, your entire well-being is determined solely by your landlord. You can be an excellent tenant and they'll decide not to renew your lease because reasons. Now you need to move your whole apartment in like three months, which means finding a new place. In some cases this requires a credit check. Not all, but that still limits your options in a tricky situation. Imagine if the place you lived was determined solely by that number you didn't pay attention to.

Want a nice car? Better have cash. Laptop? Cash. $3k to drop on a new laptop isn't feasible for the vast majority of people who aren't affluent.

I know you mean well, and I share your "fuck this broken system" feeling, but it can get you into trouble. Rebellion only works if you have the means.

Here's a concrete question: you need a laptop to do your job. How do you get one without credit? A second hand MacBook still costs >$1k. And yeah, we're talking sums of money that are tiny in comparison to what you're used to. It might be hard to believe that not everybody has $1k laying around. But paying $100/mo is far more pleasant, to say the least.

Here's another anecdote: new apartment in a new city. I was about 21 and had no credit history (bad or otherwise). I'm settling into my new apartment and call around to find out who the ISP is. It's AT&T. Call them up, ask for Internet. "No." "What do you mean 'no?'" "The system says 'unknown risk'. Our policy is to not do business in this situation."

I'm not exaggerating or making it up. There was no alternative, and I was completely screwed. There was no other ISP! We ended up using a family member to establish the account. But most people don't have anybody to fall back on. I don't know if AT&T still has that ridiculous policy, but there are other situations just like that.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#29

Post by yebyen »

bga wrote: post #25
altotrees wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is spot on. I didn't care about my credit score for a long time...until I did. An autopay error from one bank account to another resulted in a late payment and a 50 point drop. Coincidentally, I also needed to rent an apartment and apply for a small car loan. Both of these things were made much more difficult, even with just a 50 point ding. The score recovered quickly and I learned my lesson. It was somewhat ey…

I suppose the information is hidden to prevent gaming the system. As someone mentioned in another thread, they took out a loan for $1000, sat on it and just paid it off. Credit score goes up with zero risk for just the cost of interest. If the algorithm were exposed, it would be easier to game.

If the things they were tracking are reliable indicators of "credit-worthiness" then it would not matter if you "game the system" or not.

It's like that story about robbing the bank. First, we get jobs at the bank. Then we go in and work the jobs every day... (spoiler: we never actually rob the bank, because we get cushy jobs with benefits, and retirement plans. That's brilliant!)

Anyone with a good credit score can decide to burn their credit at any time. Loss prevention can also step in and cancel your cards at any time if they decide that you've gone off the deep end. They probably won't... but they could.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#30

Post by readams »

The FTC has a site with a lot of helpful information on helping you resolve identity theft, and even will help generate the correct documentation and direct you through the maze. https://www.identitytheft.gov

Note the it is literally the business of credit agencies to blithely ruin lives so they will be very unhelpful if they can.

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