131–140 of 195 posts
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No worries man, m just sayin
It might be worth reading Dang's comment history discussing reposts: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20porous&sort=byPopularit... It feels shitty when someone else gets the points for something you submitted earlier, but life isn't always fair, and as long as you keep submitting good content and making good comments, things even out in the end.
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> the world The United States. I assure you that even though other countries have credit reporting, they do not use SSNs. > will have no choice but to finally switch to a new system. Really? I think they will just carry on unless and until the financial downside (losses from extending bad credit, or lawsuits from identity theft victims, or penalties from the federal government intervening directly) is shown to be rea…
Fixed, thanks. What do you feel are some sensible systems used by the rest of the world? One that's hopefully hard enough to break but easy enough not to cause massive hassles.
So, the banks here are pretty annoying, opening an account is a lengthily process.
Why is this only a problem in the US? I think that one of the reasons is that the US does not have a central government registry of all the people. In Austria, we have the „Melderegister“. Every person that stays in Austria is required to register the address of their current residence. Your name and address is always in this registry, from the day you are born until you die (foreigners residing in Austria are also r…
One can decide to not work (get a tax number), not drive (get a drivers license), not travel (get a passport), not get free healthcare (get a medicare card), not vote (evade census'). Unlike most countries, one doesn't need to register or let anyone know where you live, and there is no national service (conscription).
It also has very little identity fraud.
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The SSN shouldn't be the critical key in that list. So it would a "Credit ID," Passport Number, DL #, or something related. What's the difference, it will need to be stored next all your stuff, awaiting to be stolen. Now the banks eat the small % caused by fraud (cost of doing biz), your life is hell, but not theirs. Scan your iris before getting the new loan isn't going to happen either, too costly and slow. If they…
I haven't seen password I'd or national card I'd used as identification, ever. The way it works is that you bring it physically and they look into it. Or that you send photo of the id (yes that is easier to forge, then again harder then forging utility bill) - that is done only where it is impossible to do physical check and never with loans and such. Identity theft in Europe is extremely rare. It is possible to do s…
Not gonna happen, banks for now will rather swallow the relatively low loses due to fraud.
In USA you sign a piece of paper (pre-approved loan), or login online and the loan money is deposited in your account within a few days. All automated. So far it works out for them, if fraud loses increase, the banks, not us, will choose the next method. And Congress will approve it within weeks.
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> the world The United States. I assure you that even though other countries have credit reporting, they do not use SSNs. > will have no choice but to finally switch to a new system. Really? I think they will just carry on unless and until the financial downside (losses from extending bad credit, or lawsuits from identity theft victims, or penalties from the federal government intervening directly) is shown to be rea…
Fixed, thanks. What do you feel are some sensible systems used by the rest of the world? One that's hopefully hard enough to break but easy enough not to cause massive hassles.
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To confirm your identify: national ID card, passport or driver license. To confirm your income: Your yearly income tax sheet, a payslip or your contract of employment. There is really no reason whatsoever for credit check and background check agencies to exist. All they do is ask for these papers anyway.
Credit has little to do with income. I have over $70k in various credit lines and have never shown any proof of income whatsoever. I just name a number and they accept it (after checking my all-important credit score).
In non insane countries, you are considered debt-free when you have no credit, not when you accumulate credits and pay them with one another.
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Other countries have the equivalent of SSNs, i.e., a number issued by the government tax collector. However, other countries don't use it as a form of ID. In my experience, they use passports, ID cards, drivers licenses, etc., which are supposedly "hard to forge".
More importantly, we can 2FA from my id number to my address because there is a db mapping from id to post address. With a locked mailbox (which is the default) it becomes a hassle to steal an identity. If I get a new credit card it's sent to the address I id'd for.
(Yes, I had an ID theft near-miss that involved a locked mail box in a locked stairwell. To me, the more obvious perpetrator seemed to be someone with access to the mail delivery pipeline, but the investigator I spoke certainly did not think terribly highly of the security of a locked mailbox)
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Freezing doesn't protect the information, but it does protect your credit account from being added to. Going to take the liberty of adding to this because the imprecision might cause some people to develop a poor model of how financial institutions work: you don't have a "credit account." You have a few firms which have partial views of your "credit history", sourced by reports from some firms you've previously done…
I'm curious: say you freeze your credit and then take an action that should negatively affect your credit, e.g. skip out on paying a doctor. What happens? That's nearly identical to what a fraudster might do, except there is no fraudster. How does the system differentiate between someone showing up and doing something in your name vs you actually showing up and doing something negative?
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> the world The United States. I assure you that even though other countries have credit reporting, they do not use SSNs. > will have no choice but to finally switch to a new system. Really? I think they will just carry on unless and until the financial downside (losses from extending bad credit, or lawsuits from identity theft victims, or penalties from the federal government intervening directly) is shown to be rea…
Fixed, thanks. What do you feel are some sensible systems used by the rest of the world? One that's hopefully hard enough to break but easy enough not to cause massive hassles.
+ Getting a mortgage as an identity thief? Fine. Easy to pay him a visit.
+ Getting a car? No. That's dumb. You can buy a car if you have the money.
+ Getting a bank account? Fine. Just force banks to disallow people to go below zero for several years (or forever). Replace all credit cards by debit cards.
That's basically the situation in the Netherlands for most part. Identity still gets stolen, but the impact is minimal.