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Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

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581–590 of 805 posts

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you verify with tax returns, it would be easy to borrow money from a friend and count it as income every year just for loan qualification. And then borrow more money from a bank, wait 6 months for seasoning, and use it as down payment to buy real estate. And if the loan gets sold to the government, it needs to meet government underwriting criteria and the lender has no free will. Especially for residential mortgag…

If you're "borrowing" money from a friend to bump up your income, you're likely going to bump yourself up into a higher tax bracket and end up paying more money in taxes.

On the money you borrowed. Moving into a higher tax bracket does not mean you pay the higher rate on all earning, but rather only marginal earnings in the higher bracket.

Regardless, it doesn't make sense to pay taxes on borrowed money. I'm not sure this scheme is real.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. financial system worked just fine before credit scores became a thing in 1989.

No, it didn't, it worked that WASP attendees of the bank manager's church got good rates and anyone born on the wrong side of town got turned away.

Bank of America was founded in 1904 -- well before credit scores became a thing -- to provide banking services to Italian-Americans, who could not usually obtain service from other banks due to ethnic discrimination.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#583

Why on earth would employers be motivated to sell this data or provide consent to their payroll processors to disclose it? What's in it for them? I can't imagine the per-employee revenue it brings in would be anywhere near the same magnitude of order as the FTE cost. So it's a drop in the bucket to their bottom line. Meanwhile the reputational risk and PR blowback once found out could be severe (I certainly would nev…

It saves HR a lot of time when their employees need employment verification for loans, apartment leases, etc.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So capitalism is infinitely worse than the one-child policy?

Please stick to intelligent discussion. I didn't specify an alternative model for a good reason, it doesn't exist yet. But your attempt to pre-empt that the only possible alternative is Chinese style state-sponsered capitalism illustrates the paucity of your imagination or the malice of your intentions

You spoke of the environment as your goal, and said that “any” economic option that was sustainable (presumably regarding the environment) was “infinitely” better. I gave just one example that meets your criteria that popped into my mind. If you don’t like it, then perhaps consider adjusting your original claim. You’re the one that said it would be better.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it didn't, it worked that WASP attendees of the bank manager's church got good rates and anyone born on the wrong side of town got turned away.

Bank of America was founded in 1904 -- well before credit scores became a thing -- to provide banking services to Italian-Americans, who could not usually obtain service from other banks due to ethnic discrimination.

It's also worth noting that banks couldn't operate across state lines until sometime in the 80s, so it wasn't unusual to see a lot of different smaller banks.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#588
>Who has accessed the report in the past 24 months

That is fucked up.

Edit - looking around, this system that has all of my personal data has a password requirement that looks like it was made in the 1990's.

8-16 characters. FFS

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#589
post #423
post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you say no? It's not really consent if declining affects your chances of getting credit or, worse, employment.

Yes it is, this is literally how credit works. You convince them you're credit worthy, they give you credit. If you don't like the particular information a credit company needs to trust you, then you try a different credit company. I don't follow how declining a credit company would affect your employment, is there something I'm missing there?

Having credit is not optional in modern society.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#590
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow placing a freeze requires filling out a PDF form, attaching a scan of your ID, and then sending it in over email, mail, or fax. The PDF lacks built in form fields you can type in. The extra friction is probably a feature: https://assets.equifax.com/wfs/theworknumber/assets/twn_Empl... (the exif data on that PDF shows the name of the employee that created it and that they used Word 2010...) The Equifax CCPA reques…

At least they let you mail or email. I faxed them 4 times in 6 months to verify my identity because they have me confused with someone else and eventually just gave up. They said any other alternative was not supported.

You can contact a consumer law attorney to get this fixed. There is an attorney's fees provision in the FCRA which will make it economical to pursue the remedy.
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