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How Equifax Became a Private IRS

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#81

Post by j33zusjuice »

vuln wrote: post #51
coderintherye wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not about limiting it to AGI, the point is setting limits on what data is shared so that you as the consumer always control what a requesting company sees. Don't want your data shared? No problem, you can set to deny all requests. Only want to share AGI but not your entire return, just allow that field, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your response also seems to indicate you don't work in financial ser…

People don't understand how credit scores work and you want to give them the power to allow granular permissions? Just like Facebook gave people granular access to their privacy settings? If the general population doesn't read EULAs and speed clicks through 99% of dialogs presented. I highly doubt people won't check the _allow all_ box once and be done with it. Hell Apple gives my significant other the ability to ask…

Some percentage of people making bad decisions doesn’t mean all people should be forced to make bad decisions. Yes, it’s a good thing that Facebook and apple allow those controls. Yes, it’s a shame more people don’t care about controlling their data. That doesn’t mean people who do care shouldn’t be able to control it.

What point are you trying to make, exactly?

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#83

Post by hnburnsy »

piyh wrote: post #44

I've worked on the data feeds for TWN in a large company's payroll system. If I remember right they don't just get how much money you made but the line by line check level data. Your pay data probably goes out to 14 different vendors on any given pay period. What amaze me about payroll was how accurate the data was on average, despite having wild amounts of new regulatory, healthcare, union, and pay program complexit…

who are the other vendors beside the actual payroll company and TWN? thx

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#84

Post by hnburnsy »

kornhole wrote: post #50

Since I can't opt out of this and all the scoundrels can see it anyway, I think I should just post my salary on my Linkedin page. If everybody did that, it would undercut this business and bring to light the inequities to the common people.

you can freeze it here... https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#85

Post by foota »

coderintherye wrote: post #49
refurb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no free lunch. Limiting credit checks to AGI just means everyone will assumed to have an unknown credit history and will have much higher rates. You ready to get a mortgage at prime plus 5% instead of prime plus 1%? But let me guess, we could create a law about that? Having the government do things doesn’t magically mean market forces don’t apply any more.

The point is not about limiting it to AGI, the point is setting limits on what data is shared so that you as the consumer always control what a requesting company sees. Don't want your data shared? No problem, you can set to deny all requests. Only want to share AGI but not your entire return, just allow that field, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your response also seems to indicate you don't work in financial ser…

I believe their point is that if you don't provide any piece of information, the consumer of it would just assume the worst. Or, they would average it out, so that the burden of not being accurate would affect the people that do provide it.

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#86

Post by gruez »

epgui wrote: post #18
xxpor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see where you're coming from, but on the other hand, the biggest rules are well known and quite simple: If you take a loan and pay it back on time, you'll have high credit. If you fail to meet your obligations, you won't. The existence of an underclass which is constantly on the edge of not being able to pay their bills is true though.

On the contrary, the actual rules and methodologies for credit score calculations are not documented anywhere public. Saying essentially "just don't do bad things to your reputation" is at most a very hand wavy "rule of thumb", but it's not a codified "rule" of the sort we should expect to see of such a consequential system.

> On the contrary, the actual rules and methodologies for credit score calculations are not documented anywhere public.

The exact formulas might not be, but the general factors aren't exactly a secret. Hell, the "free credit score" service my bank offers even provides a simulator tool to estimate what would happen to my credit score if I did certain things (eg. get a car loan, or pay off an existing loan).

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#87

Post by xyzelement »

epgui wrote: post #69
xyzelement wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// If there was an error in your score, you'd have no way of knowin I don't think that's true. I remember many years ago getting a free credit report on myself (it may have been a free trial from a monitoring service but I believe you can also just get it from the agencies itself) You get to see the data that is factored into your score. Anything that majorly dings your credit should be obvious (eg Experian thinks yo…

You can know in the most obvious subset of cases of error, but if your score is 573 and it's supposed to be 605, good luck figuring that out. > Is there a reason you think this isn't possible? The methodology for the calculation of credit scores is secret. You can't go on the internet and figure out how they do it. They don't tell you, they don't publish it, you can't know. Therefore you don't have the ability to che…

I understand what you're saying, I just think it's mainly a contrived scenario. Minute differences in the score (573 vs 605) don't really impact you and there's nobody trying to replicate the calculation to make sure they get whatever it's "supposed to be" - whatever that means.

The more likely scenario where someone is going to troubleshoot is "I paid off all my debts and have a lot of unused credit, how come my score is too low for mortgage lenders to talk to me" - and likely a gross mismatch like that is going to be obvious.

They give you a pretty meaningful guide on what to look for in determining your score [0] that should be enough.

Note, I am not arguing that I think it's good the exact formula is not known, I just think it's not a real problem for either the lenders (who are the ones who actually base their business on this data) or the consumer.

[0] https://www.myfico.com/credit-education/whats-in-your-credit...

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#88

Post by gruez »

jessaustin wrote: post #16
nimbius wrote: post #2

A cogent argument could.be made that transunion, Equifax, and other big private credit clearinghouses act as direct agents of an unspoken american "social credit" system in which the credit score denies housing and employment to those who refuse to or cannot conform to a largely invisible tome of rules. These agents are then unpoliced as they serve capitalisms direct need for an underclass. Full disclosure: I am a co…

Even in our most dystopian RAND-suggested bedtime story vision of a "communist hellhole", those proles who happened to possess a ruble when they got to the front of the breadline could buy a loaf. In the supercapitalist future, all transactions will require the approval of more than the two involved parties. Good luck buying anything if you ever express skepticism toward the great and powerful credit bureaus.

>Even in our most dystopian RAND-suggested bedtime story vision of a "communist hellhole", those proles who happened to possess a ruble when they got to the front of the breadline could buy a loaf. In the supercapitalist future, all transactions will require the approval of more than the two involved parties

What's preventing a "communist hellhole" from implementing something similar? Is it something about state ownership of capital that prevents a third party from interfering in two consenting parties from engaging in transactions? Actually, now that I think about it, aren't communist regimes pretty famous for shutting down markets? Isn't that a variant of "all transactions will require the approval of more than the two involved parties"?

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#89

Post by Supermancho »

vuln wrote: post #36
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equifax collects data that isn't true and libels its victims by disseminating it to other parties. Having that power enshrined within the government would not be a good thing.

Only when you give said company authorization to review your credit worthiness, then they may attempt to pull your credit information. Your information is not broadcasted to all companies in existence only those who you've authorized (or have been authorized on your behalf by a malicious actor / identify thief). This is not udp.

> Your information is not broadcasted to all companies in existence only those who you've authorized

Famously, Experian ("freecreditreport.com") sold partially filled form information. This is before submission and up to 9 times. Feel free to go to the site signup today and watch the information being streamed (in a hashed form) from your developer console.

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