Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 108 posts

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#81

Post by hellotomyrars »

NoblePublius wrote: post #74
cheriot wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree on the incentives Similar to why cookie accept/deny interfaces are atrocious. They're intended to be! I think a solution will require more creativity than "have the government do it", but the current system is clearly broken.

Every financial institution has its own credit file on you. They don’t need the third party services at all. Credit profiles can be created easily from any number of public data sources. These companies exist because we wrote laws requiring them to exist, and for no other reason.

The reach of a per financial institution credit file is different. I’m also not sure how much that is true or practical without a Pre-existing relationship with that particular institution but when your credit is polled for things that aren’t about even obtaining credit (renting/employment) what matters is the FICO Scorsese from the big 3. They have an outsized importance in functioning in society and deserve extra scrutiny.

I don’t have an inherent problem with having a broadly accepted and comprehensive credit-risk profile, but the way we do it and the institutions who profit off of it are disgusting.

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#82

Post by winrid »

alexb_ wrote: post #45
no_wizard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an idea: lets burn down FICO and the credit reporting bureaus. After all things seemed to work fine before credit scores. Perhaps we put too much "stock" in them in the first place. There has to be better ways to manage this. One way I could forsee is a government agency that acted as a reporting depot. Then you could forbid the sale of information, and create legislative firewalls for it to keep it out of the…

> After all things seemed to work fine before credit scores. Perhaps we put too much "stock" in them in the first place. There has to be better ways to manage this. The old way to do it, pre-credit score, is that they would take a look at your zip code, take a look at the color of your skin, and decide if you were a "trustworthy individual"

That's just ridiculous. Modern countries like France do not use credit scores. They just look at your last few bank statements.

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#83

Post by judge2020 »

ziddoap wrote: post #43
no_wizard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an idea: lets burn down FICO and the credit reporting bureaus. After all things seemed to work fine before credit scores. Perhaps we put too much "stock" in them in the first place. There has to be better ways to manage this. One way I could forsee is a government agency that acted as a reporting depot. Then you could forbid the sale of information, and create legislative firewalls for it to keep it out of the…

> lets burn down FICO and the credit reporting bureaus. This seems to be the harder problem. I read potentially better solutions all the time, but I never read about how to get to that point first.

What are these better solutions? The bureaus exist because companies can only quote you loan products if they have a good [enough] understanding of how responsible you are with debt and paying existing creditors. You could make arguments about some pitfalls with the score, but any other creditworthiness system will need a lot of data if lenders want to be able to trust it to provide insight to your monthly debts and payment history.

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#84

Post by judge2020 »

winrid wrote: post #82
alexb_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all things seemed to work fine before credit scores. Perhaps we put too much "stock" in them in the first place. There has to be better ways to manage this. The old way to do it, pre-credit score, is that they would take a look at your zip code, take a look at the color of your skin, and decide if you were a "trustworthy individual"

That's just ridiculous. Modern countries like France do not use credit scores. They just look at your last few bank statements.

From what I can find online, is it true that “Fichiers Banque de France”, owned by the French Government, has a de facto credit system to log credit defaults (so that lenders can deny you if you’ve missed payments for too long in the past)?

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#86

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

You tried methods #1 and #2. Stamps are expensive but the effectiveness of method #3 might surprise you. The mail-in form is not going to ask for a voice sample.

From consumerfinance.gov:

"You can request and review your free report through one of the following ways:

1. Online: Visit AnnualCreditReport.com

2. Phone: Call (877) 322-8228

3. Mail: Download and complete the Annual Credit Report Request form. Mail the completed form to:

   Annual Credit Report Request Service
   P.O. Box 105281
   Atlanta, GA 30348-5281
You can request all three reports at once or you can order one report at a time. By requesting the reports separately (for example, one every four months) you can monitor your credit report throughout the year."

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#87

Post by ugh123 »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #27

The problem is, as you articulated, they are required by law to provide credit reporting information about you to you. They have no incentive to do this because they make their money by collecting and selling data about us. They have every reason to use this reporting requirement to collect more information about you. They have every reason to conflate credit freeze with credit hold , and confuse consumers in order t…

>They have successfully convinced the public that identity theft is a separate and distinct crime done exclusively by one person to another rather than simply fraud that they are aiding and abetting.

I interpret that as: Companies like Equifax allow (or disregard good security practices to enable) data breaches to land your data into identity theft rings. They (Equifax) then try to sell you "protection services" while they continue to dangle your data to tantalized thieves. What a fucking racket.

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#88

Post by handoflixue »

g051051 wrote: post #52
olliej wrote: post #11

I still love the whole "we know our data is wrong, but we sell it as fact, and know that that information is used to impact cost to you, but you're required to constantly check with us, or pay us to tell you when we're lying". Yet somehow this isn't extortion, and somehow it's not illegal defamation. The moment credit agencies started running their own monitoring services, it seemed like they were openly admitting th…

> The moment credit agencies started running their own monitoring services, it seemed like they were openly admitting that they were defaming people. I still do not understand why this is legal. If you're signed up for credit monitoring, you get notified when your credit info gets changed, so you have a chance to react if it's an error (or fraud). How is that defamation? Why would it be illegal?

g051051? The guy who keeps trying to post porn all over this site? I can't believe you've got the guts to go posting here. I've told everyone about your disgusting behavior.

What's that? You never did that? Well, for just $5/month you can sign up for my monitoring service and we can investigate your claims. In the mean time, I'm going to keep warning everyone about your behavior.

I feel like most people would consider the above behavior unacceptable, but it's okay because I'm a big company dedicated to stopping perverts like you.

(hopefully it is clear that I'm not actually serious. Unlike the credit agencies)

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#89

Post by 317070 »

judge2020 wrote: post #83
ziddoap wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lets burn down FICO and the credit reporting bureaus. This seems to be the harder problem. I read potentially better solutions all the time, but I never read about how to get to that point first.

What are these better solutions? The bureaus exist because companies can only quote you loan products if they have a good [enough] understanding of how responsible you are with debt and paying existing creditors. You could make arguments about some pitfalls with the score, but any other creditworthiness system will need a lot of data if lenders want to be able to trust it to provide insight to your monthly debts and…

Many European countries do not have a credit score system. Companies and banks are a lot less inclined to give you credit, but I don't see how that is a bad thing for society?

Re: Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

#90

Post by tagyro »

317070 wrote: post #89
judge2020 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these better solutions? The bureaus exist because companies can only quote you loan products if they have a good [enough] understanding of how responsible you are with debt and paying existing creditors. You could make arguments about some pitfalls with the score, but any other creditworthiness system will need a lot of data if lenders want to be able to trust it to provide insight to your monthly debts and…

Many European countries do not have a credit score system. Companies and banks are a lot less inclined to give you credit, but I don't see how that is a bad thing for society?

Germany enters the scene.

There was a recent article about Schufa - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39395329.

Post reply on HN