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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

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Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#41

Post by tertius »

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…

Then you have to pay income tax on the churn.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#42

Post by tertius »

skinnymuch wrote: post #18
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.

You can spend completely normally and still make money from CCs if you pay them off. Everyone needs basics like food (supplies), transportation costs, and household/hygiene items. Maybe you're better than us, but most people also have utilities like internet and cell phone bills. You likely paid for however you typed that comment. Putting that on a credit card with rewards and paying it off asap wouldn't hurt you one…

> discipline not to over spend

Like the discipline to never use Facebook? Extremely rare. And psychologically expensive.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#43

Post by tertius »

astral303 wrote: post #31
brndnmtthws wrote: post #2

Another good way to protect yourself is to save money, and avoid needing to rely on banks for a credit lifeline.

I have a friend w/o a bank account and he basically can't rent an apartment, ever.

It's also hard without a credit score. But not impossible but any stretch.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#44

Post by brndnmtthws »

tertius wrote: post #38
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.

If "invest what you don't pay" is the only benefit to buying a very quickly depreciating asset then you're not a very good investor. Buy a used car and invest the bulk of the cash (if you actually have any). Can't get great deals on used car loans compared to new. Fees/depreciation quickly kills the allure of a good rate. If your user credit cards for rewards you don't realize that it actually makes you spend more mo…

This right here. These companies are milking people and they have no idea because they only want to believe what already confirms their biases.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#46

Post by quuquuquu »

tertius wrote: post #32
quuquuquu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, however many industries in the US are attempting to "financialize" everything. Debt-lenders no longer can sustain growth on just houses and cars- "let's go after furniture, all consumer goods, technology, payday loans"... etc. It is a good solution for many to "just have money on hand", but when asset prices are inflated due to easy credit, how can I ever have enough to buy in cash?

Wait, save, then buy if you still want to. You can buy a house with no credit history. Look it up.

According to credit suisse, only 33m people in this world have 1m+ USD of assets.

So, out of 3.5 billion adults in this world, only 0.7% have the ability to buy a home in a large city in cash.

What, then, should the other 99.3% of people do?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#47

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

tertius wrote: post #39
skinnymuch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I put my brother in a bad spot. It doesn't really hurt him much right now but I messed up some business work using CCs under his name. With his permission of course. I can't pay them off right now, but I've managed to get my credit score close to 800. So I'm going to be getting a couple of credit cards and balance transfer my debts over to myself. All the decent or better CCs I've seen, offer pretty nice opening…

Spend $3k and get $500 in rewards... Why not just spend $2k instead? Maybe spend the time increasing your income. (I have done this... Rarely would the hassle.)

Because you are probably spending 3K in 3 months anyway. If you absolutely aren't (or you can't hit the minimum spend in other ways [pay for your friends etc.]), sure, don't get the card.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#48

Post by g051051 »

Finally a breath of fresh air and reason amidst all of the fear mongering and anti-CRA FUD. The system isn't perfect, and consumers are definitely at risk...but it's far more important to really understand the relationship and interplay between CRAs and businesses in order to get a handle on the problems and work towards meaningful reform.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#49

Post by tptacek »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #28
tptacek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

Let me condense my last post down for you.

1. You're right, in the sense that most people on HN with an established career in technology are, relatively speaking, "rich". That was my point: if you're stably employed in technology, your credit score might matter less than you think it does.

2. You're wrong, in the sense that with the exception of the credit card anecdote, which I related as a way of demonstrating that I had in fact had some interaction with my credit score, all of that post concerned stuff that happened long before we sold Matasano. By the standards of HN in 2017, in the mid-00's, I was most assuredly not rich (the way you mean it; I'm just stipulating your term). I've had terrible credit the whole time.

A big part of my point is that "just use cash" worked out much better for me than attempting to rely on credit. Obviously, if I worked as a retail clerk, that would a very problematic strategy. But I don't. If I had been able to resolve "need a new laptop" with credit instead of cash, I'd have been worse off.

I get that the rules are different for tech workers. Part of the point of saying this is to remind people that the rules may be more different for us than we think, which should have moral implications for us as well.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#50

Post by tertius »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #47
tertius wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spend $3k and get $500 in rewards... Why not just spend $2k instead? Maybe spend the time increasing your income. (I have done this... Rarely would the hassle.)

Because you are probably spending 3K in 3 months anyway. If you absolutely aren't (or you can't hit the minimum spend in other ways [pay for your friends etc.]), sure, don't get the card.

More work: - cancel the card because yearly fee. - pay tax on churned $. - shorten cumulative account age (lowers credit score).

I've done this... Not worth it. Focus on more important things.

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