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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

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Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#71

Post by brownbat »

patio11 wrote: post #5
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.

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 mountains of money, why would I need credit?" is something which is often said by people who operate meth labs.

Eh, this can get overstated on all those guides to hack your score.

My wife and I are both, to put it mildly, debt averse. When it came time to buy a house the lenders cared far more about debt to income ratio than scores, which we never built up through artificial debt, but turned out fine anyway.

Lenders deal with enough people that they quickly realized we were the sort of weirdos who would pay early and competed for our business. I suppose they could have wondered if we would be so confused by how debt works that we'd just skip random payments because we are bad at monthly responsibilities. Somehow they ruled that out by talking to us and looking at information about our lives. Makes sense, that's basically their job. Otherwise they're leaving money on the table.

So sure, definitely watch for errors. Don't take something on then default. But otherwise a light history is not going to sink you, at least not on its own.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#72

Post by sowbug »

patio11 wrote: post #12
bichiliad wrote: post #10

I love that this is both informative, seemingly complete, and genuinely useful, and I really hope it gets in front of the people who will need it the most.

It is, somewhat regrettably to me, not nearly complete. This is the Cliff Notes version -- it's biased towards the most useful particular bits for one particular use case and constrained by the fact that I was trying to write it in a few hours on a Saturday afternoon while still having time to play with my kids.

It gets the essential point across. Communication with a CRA is a battle of attrition. This is how to send specific early signals that you'll last longer than they will.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#74

Post by yardie »

JoBrad wrote: post #36
readams wrote: post #30

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.

Huge differences in quality between your first and second paragraphs. It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness. They prosper when more people are in the credit pool and are able to take out loans.

> It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness.

Please, the dogma they preach they might as well be a religion. * Where you live affects your credit worthiness.

* How long you live there affects your credit worthiness.

* The title of your job affects your credit worthiness.

* Marital status affects your credit worthiness.

* The degree and school you attended affects your credit worthiness.

* How long you have a bank account affects your credit worthiness.

I haven't even touched on the credit part of credit worthiness, yet.

And I know this as these are the bullshit questions I had to answer while we're trying to purchase a home.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#75

Post by sillysaurus3 »

tptacek wrote: post #69
ams6110 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's AT&T. Call them up, ask for Internet. "No." "What do you mean 'no?'" "The system says 'unknown risk'. That surprises me. I have relatives who have TERRIBLE credit. Reposessed cars, unemployed, a lifetime of poor financial decisions. They have had no trouble getting utilities or e.g. DirecTV service. They typically have to pay several months in advance as a "deposit" but they are not turned down flat. Even "unk…

I don't know if this is a late 201x thing, but over decades of having piss-poor credit and no funds with which to make advanced payments, I never once had a problem getting phone and Internet service. Renting cars? Yes. Needing to provide some extra documentation for landlords? Yes. Opening new checking accounts? Yes. Getting DSL or cable? Not once.

I was surprised too. It was for having zero credit rather than bad credit. Maybe it was just a corner case I fell into. It was in Petaluma CA in 2010 or so.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#76

Post by sillysaurus3 »

tptacek wrote: post #49
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, you mention that you sold Matasano, but that kind of sidesteps that you'd be screwed if it didn't happen. It's not tech workers vs retail clerks so much as financial windfall vs having a regular 9-5.

The credit system just sucks. It's a historical accident. But it's also not really realistic to say "In some cases you can get away with not worrying about your credit score if you're a tech worker."

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#77

Post by quuquuquu »

tertius wrote: post #52
quuquuquu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not suggesting buying a house in cash. This would take a long time. There are lenders who do not require a credit history. Look it up. The "save, wait" comment was more general than house buying.

Ok thank you! I will go digging, but I am surprised and certainly skeptical :)

For me, the easiest solution has always been renting a room without a lease from a buddy at a rational price

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#78

Post by astral303 »

g051051 wrote: post #48

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.

I think the fact that consumers get the short of the stick in the CRA business model is a very real problem. It's an oligopoly with no chance for competition. Just because CRAs have some upsides to the economy doesn't mean that we can't loudly sound the alarm of how much control mistake by 3 private companies have over success in our lives.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#79

Post by sliverstorm »

yardie wrote: post #74
JoBrad wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge differences in quality between your first and second paragraphs. It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness. They prosper when more people are in the credit pool and are able to take out loans.

> It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness. Please, the dogma they preach they might as well be a religion. * Where you live affects your credit worthiness. * How long you live there affects your credit worthiness. * The title of your job affects your credit worthiness. * Marital status affects your credit worthiness. * The degree and school you attended affects your credit…

What, pray tell, do you think affects your credit worthiness?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#80

Post by tptacek »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #76
tptacek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, you mention that you sold Matasano, but that kind of sidesteps that you'd be screwed if it didn't happen. It's not tech workers vs retail clerks so much as financial windfall vs having a regular 9-5. The credit system just sucks. It's a historical accident. But it's also not really realistic to say "In some cases you can get away with not worrying about your credit score if you're a tech worker."

I'm not arguing that the credit system doesn't suck. It sucks so much that I haven't had any meaningful contact with it for 20 years. For most of that time, the overwhelming majority of which I spent financially insecure (and a parent, to boot), my disengagement from credit has ended up feeling like a blessing. I genuinely do not understand why people get credit cards.

As for "windfall vs. 9-5", I spent ~20 years in the latter category, a category which I'm not unlikely to end up in again, and I simply don't agree with you.

Maybe another way to put it is this: for all the problems you've had with personal finances, I assert that acquiring revolving credit is a good solution to none of them.

Finally: since litigating this further is inevitably going to involve getting into pretty squicky financial details and debates over personal financial decision-making, I'm going to stop here. Since I think you'll probably disagree with me, I want to be clear that I expect and will read any rebuttal to this that you write, but I'm not going to continue the debate.

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