I have zero debt. Absolutely zero. However, I left the States soon after graduating university, and thus also have (had) no credit history there. Since I've been planning to return soon, I've been trying to build a history, so when the time comes, I can get a mortgage loan. The process of building a credit history has been enlightening and frustrating. I'm in the tech world, as most people in this forum is as well. I…
Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
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Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#82I have zero debt. Absolutely zero. However, I left the States soon after graduating university, and thus also have (had) no credit history there. Since I've been planning to return soon, I've been trying to build a history, so when the time comes, I can get a mortgage loan. The process of building a credit history has been enlightening and frustrating. I'm in the tech world, as most people in this forum is as well. I…
I got an AMEX Platinum Card with no US credit history and no SSN. It was my first US credit card but I'd had a lower tier AMEX card since 2006 in the UK, and AMEX will consider your history with them in other countries if you have no history in the US. 6-12 months after moving to the US and with a newly acquired SSN and no late AMEX payments, I was able to get the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and the Apple Card, which…
Here's a fun read from DHH: https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1192540900393705474
Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#831. Intuit owns Credit Karma
> Intuit has lobbied extensively against the IRS providing taxpayers with free pre-filled forms, as is the norm in developed countries.[108][11][109]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit
2. Intuit owns Mailchimp. Mailchump was hacked earlier this year.
> In a scant blog post dated August 12, just two days after the company’s co-founder and long-time CEO Ben Chestnut stepped down, Mailchimp said a recent but undated attack saw threat actors targeting data and information from “crypto-related companies” using phishing and social engineering tactics. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that 214 Mailchimp accounts were affected by the incident, which comes just months after hackers compromised an internal Mailchimp tool to access information on 300 accounts.
- https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/16/digitalocean-emails-mailch...
I don't know for sure but I believe this could have been prevented by the use of hardware U2F tokens, the cost of which is pretty small compared to the consequences of this breach, which affected DO and others.
On a personal note, I used to have bad credit, and I grew in the habit of regularly checking my credit score on Credit Karma. They used to send me emails telling me to check my credit score, that my score had fallen, or it had risen, and so on. The emails were unnecessary - it was ingrained in me to check the app on a ~weekly basis. Eventually, I realized that my score had been at an acceptable level for years, and I unsubscribed from the mails, deleted the app off of my phone, and stopped checking. In my opinion, this was predatory behavior, preying on the vulnerabilities and insecurities of people like me or people who had it much worse.
To sum up: Intuit is not a good company. They care about making a buck and don't care about the consumer; in fact they actively work against the consumer. I don't understand why the connection between Mailchimp, Credit Karma, and Intuit is not front and center in all of these articles.
Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe they're self-hosting the ads, so if you can see the page at all, you'll see the ads.
Usually browser based adblockers such as Ublock Origin apply extra logic on top of domains to determine if it's an ad or not and if it should be blocked, and they're usually quite successful.
Sort of what you would do to get your analytics script past UBlock.
Like, use Cloudflare worker or something to proxy your analytics script and it won't get blocked.
Just a thought, far from sure.
Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#85>The FTC alleges that the company used claims that consumers were pre-approved and had ’90 per cent odds’ to entice them to apply for offers that, in many instances, they ultimately did not qualify for. I believe CK has inside views to the models^ these companies use, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that 90% is actually very close to reality. However, I can also see why someone taking a hard credit pull would be…
>I wouldn't be surprised to find that 90% is actually very close to reality The FTC press release[1] says "for many offers, almost a third of consumers who applied were in fact denied". That's quite a ways off from 90%. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/... edit: >Also, Credit Karma gets paid for successful conversions, and maybe ad placement? It doesn't seem like misleading someone got…
Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked in an industry where we were required to use a bunch of euphemisms throughout our internal documents for just this reason - if we were investigated by the government, all of those documents would be evidence and using words like “war room” would be used as proof of (channeling the DOJ press release team) “anti-competitive actions akin to a war where the enemy would be destroyed, and the defendant would have…
Wouldn't any judge see right through such bullshit?
Clearly if you’re trying to put a competitor out of business then calling it a “team room” won’t matter one bit.
Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#87CK was a place where things were so complex (perhaps needlessly) you couldn't find anyone to explain what was going on. On this topic, you could ask people on the data team how their models worked (to determine what card or loan offers show to what users) and they seemed to have no idea, they just wanted to put the models in an AB test and see if conversion numbers went up or down.
Aside from this, there was plenty of politicking and ambitious people. Not surprised no one was really paying attention to whether or not they were running afoul of any laws. Also, I'm going to guess they made more than $3M on these mistakes that likely impacted their users' credit scores negatively.
Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#88Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#89Having worked at CK, specifically on personal loans, I'm going to with Hanlon's razor here. ( Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. ) Not saying the fine isn't warranted, it is. CK was a place where things were so complex (perhaps needlessly) you couldn't find anyone to explain what was going on. On this topic, you could ask people on the data team how their models worked (to dete…
Re: Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers
#90Things I think are worth noting: 1. Intuit owns Credit Karma > Intuit has lobbied extensively against the IRS providing taxpayers with free pre-filled forms, as is the norm in developed countries.[108][11][109] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit 2. Intuit owns Mailchimp. Mailchump was hacked earlier this year. > In a scant blog post dated August 12, just two days after the company’s co-founder and long-time CEO B…
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