Bottom line: Whenever possible, wherever possible, pay cash. I used to laugh at my father-in-law whom I once considered to be a conspiracy theory whackjob with his off-the-grid lifestyle. As more and more of his "crazy" insights turn into New York Times headlines, I'm starting to think he was ahead of the curve.
Am I missing something here? Paying cash doesn't prevent the opening of fraudulent lines of credit in your name.
Equifax et al don't particularly care if you pay cash, they have some form of record on you either way.
Bottom line: Whenever possible, wherever possible, pay cash. I used to laugh at my father-in-law whom I once considered to be a conspiracy theory whackjob with his off-the-grid lifestyle. As more and more of his "crazy" insights turn into New York Times headlines, I'm starting to think he was ahead of the curve.
Am I missing something here? Paying cash doesn't prevent the opening of fraudulent lines of credit in your name. Equifax et al don't particularly care if you pay cash, they have some form of record on you either way.
I guess the idea is that if one were "off the grid" enough not to have a phone, one's details wouldn't be in their DB in the first place. That would make one's identity harder to steal, which would cause the thieves to move on to the next victim.
Am I missing something here? Paying cash doesn't prevent the opening of fraudulent lines of credit in your name. Equifax et al don't particularly care if you pay cash, they have some form of record on you either way.
I guess the idea is that if one were "off the grid" enough not to have a phone, one's details wouldn't be in their DB in the first place. That would make one's identity harder to steal, which would cause the thieves to move on to the next victim.
But I think you need to be 100% off the grid to accomplish that. Which in today's society is practically impossible. If you're on the grid at all, you're open to attack. Since you have to take that hit anyway, might as well also take advantage of the benefits the grid offers.
I would rather anyone opening a line of credit be required to obtain proof of acceptance by the person named on the account and until doing so they are 100% liable for all debts incurred. How this is defined will require regulation. The burden is increased at any time a request is made outside of the state and city of residence
This is already the law. You are not responsible to pay debts incurred by another person. The problem is when the bank or company that gave credit to someone else that used your identity information is allowed to lie to a credit bureau about the fact that it was you who defaulted on the debt. Otherwise you could just tell the bank, "Pound sand stranger, I never borrowed any money from you. Stop bugging me or I'll get…
These proposed "large fines" would still require regular people to deal with putative creditors and occasionally to defend themselves in court. Structural changes are required to make the system as it actually functions more equitable to humans. What are structural changes? For instance, prior to enforcing a debt the law could require the production of an authenticated video recording of the debtor clearly stating, "I am John Doe and I agree that I owe EvilCo $1,000 on May 9, 2018." This requirement would make it more difficult to lend money, so it would be opposed by some very deep pockets. I suspect that any actual solution to the inequity in this area would make it more difficult to lend money, so progress is likely to be slow.
It's all so tiring. It's seriously going to be decades until we get politicians in power that understand the Internet and start holding companies accountable that don't give a shit about security (namely, all of them).
I would rather anyone opening a line of credit be required to obtain proof of acceptance by the person named on the account and until doing so they are 100% liable for all debts incurred. How this is defined will require regulation. The burden is increased at any time a request is made outside of the state and city of residence
This is already the law. You are not responsible to pay debts incurred by another person. The problem is when the bank or company that gave credit to someone else that used your identity information is allowed to lie to a credit bureau about the fact that it was you who defaulted on the debt. Otherwise you could just tell the bank, "Pound sand stranger, I never borrowed any money from you. Stop bugging me or I'll get…
I wish this framing would gain more currency, since it seems to me to accurately capture the problem: Creditors are (presumably unknowingly, but also largely uncaringly) lying when they report defaults against the wrong debtors.
When Equifax repeats those lies to other potential creditors, they're also failing, but at root the misinformation originates with the creditor who failed to properly authenticate their customer.
Bottom line: Whenever possible, wherever possible, pay cash. I used to laugh at my father-in-law whom I once considered to be a conspiracy theory whackjob with his off-the-grid lifestyle. As more and more of his "crazy" insights turn into New York Times headlines, I'm starting to think he was ahead of the curve.
A much more effective strategy than paying cash is to run your own email server (making sure that it is secure, of course). Email is one of the most common attack vectors, but most scammers are going to target the big providers. Attacking an individual server is not going to be worth the bother.
Bottom line: Whenever possible, wherever possible, pay cash. I used to laugh at my father-in-law whom I once considered to be a conspiracy theory whackjob with his off-the-grid lifestyle. As more and more of his "crazy" insights turn into New York Times headlines, I'm starting to think he was ahead of the curve.
Am I missing something here? Paying cash doesn't prevent the opening of fraudulent lines of credit in your name. Equifax et al don't particularly care if you pay cash, they have some form of record on you either way.
if you use cash exclusively, then you have no credit to exploit. equifax knows about me, but no one will give me a loan.
It's all so tiring. It's seriously going to be decades until we get politicians in power that understand the Internet and start holding companies accountable that don't give a shit about security (namely, all of them).
Will it ever happen? When the current generation of children reaches office-holding age, a majority of them may understand internet culture, but I don't think a significant fraction will ever understand the internet in a technical sense.