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Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

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Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#161

Post by harry8 »

harryh wrote: post #132
mceachen wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a Standard Car Dealership or Mortgage Lender going to support you redlining an agreement, crossing out the sections you don't like (which include oversharing every and all morsel of data they can fetch from you)? No. The salesperson/CSR is going to be confused, and not even know how to proceed. In none of these cases did I opt in. And I decidedly couldn't opt-out.

Yes, if you want to borrow money, the person loaning you money is generally going to insist that you opt into the system that helps them understand if you are a good credit risk or not. That's not an unfair request on their part. Don't want to participate? Then don't ask for a loan.

A genuine alternative is to be able take your custom to one of the MANY other providers who aren't forcing you agree to conditions that are ridiculous. As soon as there is no alternative it's an industry cartel and we need to look at regulating. What is appropriate to determine credit worthiness? How about a blood sample? How much melanin do you have? Who did you vote for and we'll need that verified with a photo of your ballot. There's a million more totally unreasonable ways of determining your credit worthiness, some legal, some not but should be and you would choose not to submit if you could.

You have agree to pay interest, on time and pay the loan back. -- ok that's not something you can reasonably opt out of and hope to get a loan.

You have to agree to to have your life ruined on a whim or by incompetence because you borrowed $1k and paid it back in full with the interest? -- no, definitely not ok.

In between the extremes are all the cases that need looking at. This is a standard case of market failure where you as a consumer have zero market power to effect your preference and your preference is more than reasonable. The GFC was one occasion where such a market failure really came home to roost. There are others, some are trivial, some are huge, most in between. Where it can ruin your life, utterly needlessly and the lives of others, possibly systemically across the whole economy, we tend to want to regulate it so that doesn't happen. There are many such examples in finance which is why we have regulated it in so many ways for so long. Sometimes the regulation will be effective, sometimes not, sometimes it will be fair, sometimes not, sometimes it will be captured by the powerful, hopefully mostly not. Without it, eh, we head for some big trouble, at worst class and civil warfare.

(Separate but somewhat related note: "You need to agree to all future changes to this contract by your counter-party in all circumstances" - OH HELL NO that's not ok and should not be considered remotely legal, yet there it is in every single click through you've ever bothered to read and fail to understand on the internet because the click throughs (not contracts for mine) are simply not capable of being understood without the assistance of layers of courts, lawyers and judges - the law on them is not settled anywhere on earth as far as I'm aware. Unconscionable conduct in such things is the norm, pretending otherwise is silly no matter how libertarian I want to be about it and life in general.)

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#162

Post by adrr »

mikeash wrote: post #149
adrr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could build a better algorithm to do underwriting, you could make billions. Companies try all the time like zest finance.

Better for whom? I’m sure the existing credit bureaus are great for the people who give them money. They sure suck for the rest of us, though. Fortunately for them, we get zero say.

Market is efficient. If underwriting wasn’t efficient, a company could utilize better algorithms and offer better rates and better determine risk to minimize default. This a multi billion dollar opportunity. People don’t care about who is underwriting their car or home loan, they care about rates.

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#163

Post by harryh »

harry8 wrote: post #161
harryh wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you want to borrow money, the person loaning you money is generally going to insist that you opt into the system that helps them understand if you are a good credit risk or not. That's not an unfair request on their part. Don't want to participate? Then don't ask for a loan.

A genuine alternative is to be able take your custom to one of the MANY other providers who aren't forcing you agree to conditions that are ridiculous. As soon as there is no alternative it's an industry cartel and we need to look at regulating. What is appropriate to determine credit worthiness? How about a blood sample? How much melanin do you have? Who did you vote for and we'll need that verified with a photo of…

it's an industry cartel and we need to look at regulating

There are ALL KINDS of regulations around banking and credit reporting. All of the wacky things you mention are already not allowed.

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#164

Post by throwawaycert »

mehrdadn wrote: post #119
billh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had credit card companies call me and straight up say "If you pay this right now over the phone with me and pay the $15 telephone transaction fee, this won't hit your credit report" Between the "Pay for Delete" scams and the gamifying of your credit score through services like CreditKarma I really questions how close these scores are hitting anymore in relation to relative credit risk.

> I've had credit card companies call me and straight up say "If you pay this right now over the phone with me and pay the $15 telephone transaction fee, this won't hit your credit report" Does that not qualify as extortion?

The contract you agree to for credit cards or other forms of debt you choose to take on will specify things like late fees and that it's up to the company's discretion whether they report you a late payment to the agencies. If they didn't have this clause, you'd just be complaining that they report everyone indiscriminately rather than giving people a break when it seems appropriate.

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#165

Post by throwawaycert »

mikeash wrote: post #151
throwawaycert wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was something subtly different. The banks more or less knew they were taking poor risks, the problem is it wasn't their risk to take . They quietly packaged these bad mortgages along with others and resold the mess to less sophisticated investors (like pension plans). Then the bubble burst, the well dried up, and banks started collapsing. It wasn't a mismanagement of risk, it was criminal fraud writ large.

I would argue that credit bureaus leaking all your information to criminals and then charging you money to protect you from those criminals is also criminal fraud writ large.

That doesn't seem relevant to the question of whether credit scores are statistically useful.

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#166

Post by notus »

greedo wrote: post #53
deckard1 wrote: post #49

We're all supposed to take it as just a fact of life now that we need a monitoring service for a service none of us opted in to. And who runs these monitoring services? Why of course, it's the credit reporting companies! Who else would it be. So not only do they know when fraud is happening to you, but they will happily ruin your life while knowing and charge you for the privilege of knowing this is happening to you.…

Unfortunately, most of us did opt in. If you look at the credit agreements we sign when we buy cars, open credit accounts, enter into a mortgage, we give the lender the privilege to share our data with these credit reporting companies.

What is more unfortunate is that we're just okay with these practices.

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#167

Post by iratewizard »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #118
munk-a wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware this is legally the case, but I think this is yet another sign that default opt-in isn't a legitimate agreement, society has become pretty litigious and I think some of the understanding around default opt-ins during enrollment for other services and third party data sales need to be revisited. I find them to be highly unethical and to generally result in a contract negotiated without compensation and any c…

> society has become pretty litigious and I think some of the understanding around default opt-ins during enrollment for other services and third party data sales need to be revisited Are you saying these two ideas are related? If so, I don't quite see the connection -- can you expand a bit?

Not that poster, but I believe what they're saying is that because we heavily use the law to structure society, it's time to use the law to remove an undesired aspect: default opt-ins.

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#168

Post by mikeash »

nodesocket wrote: post #4

Well to be fair there is a fixed allocation of money, so if anybody that filled it out earlier wants to actually get a check they have to limit it. Either that, or everybody gets a check for a few cents. Which is worse really? It’s the same as when you go to a baseball game and they have a giveaway for the first 10,000 fans. There is a limit to the offer and being early matters.

It’s more like the baseball stadium had defrauded their customers and they are legally obligated to give refunds, but somehow the court allows them to only give refunds to the first 10,000 fans who request it.

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#169

Post by mikeash »

throwawaycert wrote: post #165
mikeash wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that credit bureaus leaking all your information to criminals and then charging you money to protect you from those criminals is also criminal fraud writ large.

That doesn't seem relevant to the question of whether credit scores are statistically useful.

We've established that sufficiently advanced fraud can overcome the ability of organizations to vet the info that’s given to them. If the credit bureaus are actually organizations dedicated to fraud, then the fact that many other organization fall for it doesn’t tell us too much about their accuracy.

Re: Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims

#170

Post by djsumdog »

munk-a wrote: post #62
greedo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, most of us did opt in. If you look at the credit agreements we sign when we buy cars, open credit accounts, enter into a mortgage, we give the lender the privilege to share our data with these credit reporting companies.

I'm aware this is legally the case, but I think this is yet another sign that default opt-in isn't a legitimate agreement, society has become pretty litigious and I think some of the understanding around default opt-ins during enrollment for other services and third party data sales need to be revisited. I find them to be highly unethical and to generally result in a contract negotiated without compensation and any c…

There is certainly no meeting-of-the-minds when it comes to EULAs, car loan applications and other such contracts.
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