21–30 of 271 posts
I don’t know how it’s in other countries, but Schufa is a monopolist and feels like simply paying a tax. You have no choice. Interestingly, I didn’t need a credit check to rent in Belgium and Denmark.
There are 3 other companies in Germany that offer the same service. Schufa is the most well-known one but far from a monopoly. That said, I agree with you. It needs to go.
It's high time this issue gets sorted out by the courts and Schufa is finally forced to change their malicious business model.
Change it to what though? On the one hand, I think Schufa is collecting a lot of unnecessary data that they should'nt have access to. For example, when I bought a pre-paid SIM card in Germany the provider did a Schufa check. No idea why. On the other hand, I get why a credit score can be useful for larger purchase decisions. If I was a bank, I'd like to know if the person I'm lending 400k for a property, has in the p…
“Has this person defaulted before?”
If someone wants to borrow huge sums from a bank the bank should take the risk and price it appropriately.
If someone wants to borrow money to buy a TV the seller should take the risk and price it appropriately.
The current solution seems too invasive for what it provides. How is the world better because Schufa knows someone bought a prepaid phone card and can sell that to an online store when you buy a pair of shoes and choose to pay by invoice the next week?
Something is in theory cheaper somewhere but where is the proof? The only hard data we have is that Schufa and companies like them are making billions, so there is certainly money to be saved by someone somewhere by scrapping this.
Some fun features of SCHUFA in Germany: 1. If you apply for a loan, this affects your credit rating. Yes - not get a loan, or default on a loan, simply by applying for a loan, your SCHUFA can be affected negatively. Especially if you are shopping around for loans, this is infuriating. This happens because your SCHUFA is affected simply by another entity checking your SCHUFA score. This is also really annoying because…
Some fun features of SCHUFA in Germany: 1. If you apply for a loan, this affects your credit rating. Yes - not get a loan, or default on a loan, simply by applying for a loan, your SCHUFA can be affected negatively. Especially if you are shopping around for loans, this is infuriating. This happens because your SCHUFA is affected simply by another entity checking your SCHUFA score. This is also really annoying because…
Most of the time so, you can easily ignore Schufa in your dqy to day live. They suck to deal with for mortgages, loans and appartment rental so. And they over step their authority and abuse their power all the time, without cobsequences for them so far. Hope that changes soon.
Some fun features of SCHUFA in Germany: 1. If you apply for a loan, this affects your credit rating. Yes - not get a loan, or default on a loan, simply by applying for a loan, your SCHUFA can be affected negatively. Especially if you are shopping around for loans, this is infuriating. This happens because your SCHUFA is affected simply by another entity checking your SCHUFA score. This is also really annoying because…
Even though, if you log on to the (free) credit reporting service to see your own data - these 'soft searches' are still recorded, so the industry has basically decided that they shouldn't affect your chances of getting credit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a service like Klarna means you're bad at dealing with money, so it makes sense.
It isn't. I financed my phone for free via Klarna. I could easily pay it at once but why would I. In the end I save a bit because of inflation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They point of a credit agency is to sell the data about your credit worthiness to OTHERS that are considering giving you a credit so they can make an accurate risk assesment.
That's a distinction without a difference. Whether the renter or the landlord buy the credit report, the renter will pay for it anyway.
In the case of landlords it is possible that they ask the potential tenant to hand in a report as a precondition to even make a contract offer. In that case the potential tenant would have to pay for their own data if it weren't for GDPR. The Schufa uses dark patterns to trick people into buying data they legally are entitled to get for free. If you get around their confusing UI (we recently did...) they send you that infamous 30 Euro report for free without much more ado.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a service like Klarna means you're bad at dealing with money, so it makes sense.
It isn't. I financed my phone for free via Klarna. I could easily pay it at once but why would I. In the end I save a bit because of inflation.
So how do they make money? Sounds like they would be losing money to inflation by offering that service for free.
Some fun features of SCHUFA in Germany: 1. If you apply for a loan, this affects your credit rating. Yes - not get a loan, or default on a loan, simply by applying for a loan, your SCHUFA can be affected negatively. Especially if you are shopping around for loans, this is infuriating. This happens because your SCHUFA is affected simply by another entity checking your SCHUFA score. This is also really annoying because…
Using a service like Klarna means you're bad at dealing with money, so it makes sense.
It's high time this issue gets sorted out by the courts and Schufa is finally forced to change their malicious business model.
Change it to what though? On the one hand, I think Schufa is collecting a lot of unnecessary data that they should'nt have access to. For example, when I bought a pre-paid SIM card in Germany the provider did a Schufa check. No idea why. On the other hand, I get why a credit score can be useful for larger purchase decisions. If I was a bank, I'd like to know if the person I'm lending 400k for a property, has in the p…