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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

kalzumeus.com

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Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#121

Post by yebyen »

chimeracoder wrote: post #115
yebyen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not any metric is gameable. A reliable indicator of whether you will pay your bills in the future might be whether you paid your bills in the past. There is no way to game this metric, other than by paying your bills. You just chose a metric that would be easily gamed and said that any metric is gameable.

> There is no way to game this metric, other than by paying your bills. Except the exact situation outlined above, in which a person generated bills that they otherwise wouldn't have needed, for the sole sake of having more bills "paid on time".

So, how does one get over in gaming this metric? Take out a lot of credit accounts once your credit is good and then default on them? What's the end game where they come out ahead? See prior comment about the bank job... that's just called having and ruining your credit.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#122

Post by tptacek »

creeble wrote: post #114
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 would suggest that your disagreement with patio11's post bears no relevance with people who already have credit ratings, have been caught by the Equifax leak, and are at increased risk for identity theft as a result (which, I think, are those the post addresses). It seems to me you are simply gloating in your ability to avoid credit. Those who are able to avoid credit have little interesting to add to the conversat…

This comment doesn't make any argument that wasn't addressed directly in the comments preceding it.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#123

Post by Aloha »

weirdstuff wrote: post #56
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.

No, I think we need more FUD given what has just occurred. SSN and sensitive financial data of over half of U.S. adults obtained by criminals. Nice.

The law is mostly on the side of the consumer here though - the real risk is low - if anything it might be harder to get credit in the short term for a while.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#124

Post by stretchwithme »

mistersquid wrote: post #98

The kalzumeus.com article is informative and accessible, especially if your identity has been stolen. If your identity has not yet been stolen, the NYTimes has an article titled "Equifax's Instructions Are Confusing. Here's What to Do Now." [0] tl;dr: Freeze requests for your credit data at the big 3: Equifax [1], Experian [2], and Transunion [3]. (Note: these services may require multiple attempts, some persistence,…

Very useful links. Thanks.

I'd like to know how I can determine what services have such a hold in place for me.

This is all pretty absurd. Why should we have to pay to not have our credit history disclosed? We should pay when we want to have it disclosed.

Then I would have to pay THREE different companies to not disclose it. Or keep track of which ones won't disclose it.

The European model of you owning your own information is making more and more sense.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#125

Post by tome »

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.

But that is an indicator of credit worthiness. Having the financial discipline to spend your money repaying your obligations rather than treating yourself is a worthwhile indicator, regardless of how the situation comes about.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#126

Post by nelzya »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106
milkytron wrote: post #83

> Mean words cannot hurt a bank. Threats cannot hurt a bank. Paper trails, though, are terrifying to regulated institutions. Your bank’s customer support representatives are taught to evaluate whether someone looks like they’re competent and collecting a paper trail. If they are, the CS rep is supposed to stop touching the case immediately and instead escalate them to a supervisor or to the legal department. This is…

Recording phone calls without the other party's consent is super illegal, as in criminally illegal, in all-party consent states [1]. Needless to say, one gives up leverage when one commits a crime. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws

Is it legal if another side is recording (as they usually do)?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#127

Post by cperciva »

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.…

Every landlord I've rented from has pulled my credit. My credit has always been bad. But my landlord references were spotless, and that's what landlords seemed to care about.

Were you trying to rent in a tight housing market? In Vancouver, it's common for landlords to (completely illegally) weed out the tenants they don't want -- in particular, single parents, certain ethnic minorities, and people in low-class occupations -- via the excuse of credit scores (even though they accept childfree white professional-class tenants who have those same scores).

I suspect that maintaining a good credit score is far more useful for people who will encounter landlords which are looking for an excuse to reject them.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#128

Post by tptacek »

cperciva wrote: post #127
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.…

Every landlord I've rented from has pulled my credit. My credit has always been bad. But my landlord references were spotless, and that's what landlords seemed to care about. Were you trying to rent in a tight housing market? In Vancouver, it's common for landlords to (completely illegally) weed out the tenants they don't want -- in particular, single parents, certain ethnic minorities, and people in low-class occupa…

Yes: twice in San Francisco during the first bubble, with competing applicants in the room with us, first in SOMA and then in Noe Valley. Also once in Santa Clara during the same time period. (Also 4 times in Chicago, and 2 times in Ann Arbor, but those weren't as challenging.)

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#129

Post by uiri »

I am a shareholder in BigBank. I was therefore profoundly displeased when I learned...

This is amazing. It is also trivially true for anyone who holds an S&P 500 index fund or similar when dealing with American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, US Bancorp, and Wells Fargo among a few others.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#130

Post by yardie »

patio11 wrote: post #85
yardie wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Do you live in the United States? In the United States: Where you live affects your credit worthiness. Illegal, and radioactively so. The practice was called redlining and a bank engaging in it would have hellfire rained upon it. Marital status affects your credit worthiness. Also illegal. The degree and school you attended affects your credit worthiness. Untrue; credit reports don't include this information. (It is…

> Do you live in the United States?

Yes, we moved here after 15 years of living abroad.

> Marital status affects your credit worthiness.

They asked for this information.

To paraphrase our mortgage broker, "having a 4 year degree makes you much more creditworthy." And I just confirmed it with a family member who works in Fannie Mae, says it's true.

Have you looked at a 1003/residentialloan application lately? You and I both agree they shouldn't be asking these questions but those questions are on the application.

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