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The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#301

Post by flukus »

ThomPete wrote: post #83

The US is as far as I know the only country in the world who have a positive creditscore system. At least in Europe it's mostly based on a negative creditscore i.e. you are trusted by definition but if you don't pay your bills you end up not being allowed access to credit. In the US they don't trust you per definition and instead you have to prove that you are good with money by basically creating debt and then payin…

> In the US they don't trust you per definition and instead you have to prove that you are good with money by basically creating debt and then paying it off.

This seems backwards to me. The proof that I am good with money is that I have never been in debt. When I got my home loan the additional proof was having a deposit.

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#302

Post by ThomPete »

jasonlotito wrote: post #136
ThomPete wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurdly backwards because it's asking you to create debt which normally is the opposite of showing you are good with money and I would question the validity of seeing people paying back limited debt to be indicative of ex. borrowing for a house. You could instead just look at the history of their debit card usage to figure out whether they are trustworthy. As I said though I understand why they do it, it's just…

> It's absurdly backwards because it's asking you to create debt which normally is the opposite of showing you are good with money Citation required because debt is not the same thing as money, so associating them together like you do with your assertion requires something more than just your illogical statement.

It's ironic how completely oblivious many of you are of your own system.

I live in the US and I grew up in Denmark.

Both systems allowed me to have credit cards, rent apartments, buy a car etc, but only the US system forced me to do that by creating debt to show that I could be trusted with debt.

In other words large parts of the world do in fact associate them and aren't like us in the US debt ridden.

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#303

Post by ThomPete »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #285
ThomPete wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are way too tied up on the credit vs. debit part. Thats not really important here. You are not suddenly going to become financially irresponsible just because you get credit and yes you can determine someones financial responsibility by looking at their debit card usage that is why you can actually convince someone if you get rejected to look at your case again to show them additional information. This is why you…

>You are not suddenly going to become financially irresponsible just because you get credit Uhhhhhh... You haven't been in the United States for very long, have you?

No only have I been in the US fairly long now I have also lived other places and only the US is asking me to create debt to get a credit card and be able to rent an apartment. Other places they actually do look at your non credit card history to assess if they are going to give you credit.

But you can't see the forest for the trees.

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#304

Post by ThomPete »

mikeash wrote: post #282
ThomPete wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are way too tied up on the credit vs. debit part. Thats not really important here. You are not suddenly going to become financially irresponsible just because you get credit and yes you can determine someones financial responsibility by looking at their debit card usage that is why you can actually convince someone if you get rejected to look at your case again to show them additional information. This is why you…

And you're not nearly tied up enough on the credit vs debit part. The whole point of a credit report is to determine your suitability for credit , which is something that simply doesn't apply to a debit card. A ton of people suddenly become financially irresponsible just because they get a credit card. It's a massive problem, and that's why companies want to see some history. Being responsible with a debit card where…

Yes I am aware of what the point is. What I am telling you is that it's not necessary which is witnessed by other countries who have no problem not using credit history to give people credit.

The problem with people using the credit card lies as much in the incentive structure of getting points, building credit etc.

And it's obviously speaking against your claim that so many american have issues with their credit cards given that the very test your claim is necessary is failing on so many.

So no I understand the balance pretty well.

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#305

Post by ThomPete »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #261
ThomPete wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debit card usage is not going to be fundamentally different than your debit card usage. So yes it makes plenty sense as it could show something about your general ability to stay financially healthy. You are asked about assets, income etc. but those things have very little effect on whether you get a credit card or not.

This makes absolutely no sense. You are using your own money when you swipe your debit card. You are using someone else's money when you swipe your credit card and you pinky swear you'll pay it back later. You can't go into debt using a debit card because you are spending your own money you already have.

You can gauge into peoples financial responsibility simply by looking at how much they manage to save, how often they hit zero or almost zero on their account etc.

These are much better indicators of your ability to handle money than spending money and paying it back to build credit history.

Again it works in other countries and so of course it can too in the US.

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#306

Post by markdown »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #290
markdown wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonderful. A downvote and a "that's stupid" comment. Is there a reason you can't articulate your views on a system that is live and working successfully?

I can, and it isn't. It cannot be. First of all, I wrote above you in this thread, regarding smart cards for government ID: > That's not really a good solution either, though, because that requires trust in an essentially unverifiable system and the entity producing it. So, maybe you want to address that instead of just pointing out that people are in fact using a system that obviously has this problem that I already…

Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your view.

Further, I concede that you are correct as far as voting goes. That doesn't mean the card is useless. It serves other purposes quite well, even if imperfectly.

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#307

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

markdown wrote: post #306
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can, and it isn't. It cannot be. First of all, I wrote above you in this thread, regarding smart cards for government ID: > That's not really a good solution either, though, because that requires trust in an essentially unverifiable system and the entity producing it. So, maybe you want to address that instead of just pointing out that people are in fact using a system that obviously has this problem that I already…

Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your view. Further, I concede that you are correct as far as voting goes. That doesn't mean the card is useless. It serves other purposes quite well, even if imperfectly.

Well, but does it? How do you know?

Voting obviously is the biggest problem, but other uses have similar problems. Especially in terms of how you could ever figure out if it's actually not working well. You say that it serves other purposes quite well--how do you actually know that? Is it just because noone has demonstrated yet that, I dunno, the smartcards have a backdoor that is actively being used to sign stuff in other people's names? How would you know if that were the case? How would you convince a judge that you didn't sign some document when they ask you to explain how it comes that their computer tells them that you signed it?

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#308

Post by ThomPete »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #293
ThomPete wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which falsehood exactly?

Where to start? > You are american you have a history and your parents have a history. Parents have nothing to do with anything unless your parents cosign or add you as an authorized user on their cards. Being American has nothing to do with anything other than some cards require you to be a US citizen for some reason, my BVAA card does for example. My parents are scumbags and their scummy-iness doesn't effect my abi…

Yet it's possible to do this in other countries and therefore of course also possible in the US.

The very fact that things like how much you have on your savings account can affect your ability to get a credit card disproves your claims.

You might yourself be the one who have "heard" and is "assuming" things which plenty of other commenters in this thread shows.

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#309

Post by markdown »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #307
markdown wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your view. Further, I concede that you are correct as far as voting goes. That doesn't mean the card is useless. It serves other purposes quite well, even if imperfectly.

Well, but does it? How do you know? Voting obviously is the biggest problem, but other uses have similar problems. Especially in terms of how you could ever figure out if it's actually not working well. You say that it serves other purposes quite well--how do you actually know that? Is it just because noone has demonstrated yet that, I dunno, the smartcards have a backdoor that is actively being used to sign stuff in…

> How would you convince a judge that you didn't sign some document when they ask you to explain how it comes that their computer tells them that you signed it?

How would you convince a judge that someone was holding a gun to your head as you signed a document?

How would you convince a judge that you didn't sign something when they ask you to explain how it comes that the signature on the document matches yours exactly?

Re: The careless errors of credit reporting agencies

#310

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

markdown wrote: post #309
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, but does it? How do you know? Voting obviously is the biggest problem, but other uses have similar problems. Especially in terms of how you could ever figure out if it's actually not working well. You say that it serves other purposes quite well--how do you actually know that? Is it just because noone has demonstrated yet that, I dunno, the smartcards have a backdoor that is actively being used to sign stuff in…

> How would you convince a judge that you didn't sign some document when they ask you to explain how it comes that their computer tells them that you signed it? How would you convince a judge that someone was holding a gun to your head as you signed a document? How would you convince a judge that you didn't sign something when they ask you to explain how it comes that the signature on the document matches yours exact…

The thing is that both of those scenarios are things judges can be expected to understand perfectly well, and have some clue how to approach evaluating the claim, and also, in both cases, there generally is a reasonable risk that any such attempts leave some form of evidence, deterring people from even trying it.

With a smartcard, there is nothing of that sort. It's just a bunch of electronic numbers and "the blackbox says you signed it!", there isn't really anything there to investigate, plus judges can in general be expected to not have even the slightest clue how to evaluate claims about IT security, so more than likely you'll end up with a situation where judges simply accept the government-mandated assumption that what the blackbox says is to be trusted.

It's the same fundamental problem as with electronic elections: The actual process is necessarily completely removed from human perception/observation, and therefore ultimately must be trusted blindly if it's not to be rejected outright.

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