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FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

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Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#91

Post by mint2 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #83
Zeetah wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many areas, the notion of government services operating at a loss doesn't make sense - police, fire department, armed forces, libraries, parks, etc.

None of those are links in a chain of private markets. They are their own government monopoly markets. If the government is going to become the defacto credit rating agency, they might as well be the defacto lender. Obviously loan rejections and low scores will be unpopular and an easy lever to push on for more votes, so just ditch the credit ratings all together and have a government lender that lends taxpayer money…

That is incorrect, those are not government monopolies, those spaces have private options.

FedEx, DHL, UPS and government USPS

Parks - there’s a ton of types with equivalent public and private versions

Police - private security

Firefighters - there are private fire fighters who protect houses threatened by wildfire - they just don’t need to respond when it comes to responding to stuff like traffic accidents and health incidents

Etc etc

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#92

Post by mschuster91 »

ghaff wrote: post #65
vel0city wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely no expert on the law in every state, but from the states I know of there are central appraisal districts in charge of real estate tax appraisals. They already have to keep track of ownership of properties and their tax assessments, might as well just expand their domain to also include lien registries as well. I totally get it would be quite a mess and complication and issue with federalism to have the…

I'm not opposed to the idea but someone needs to hold the bag when mistakes are made and then you're essentially back to having title insurance in some form even if it's the general taxpayer that is doing the funding.

> I'm not opposed to the idea but someone needs to hold the bag when mistakes are made

Well, that's obvious: the local authority in charge of record keeping.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#93

Post by matwood »

alistairSH wrote: post #61
matwood wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine swings monthly for the same reason, though not as much. The report I get tells me why it swings ('used credit balance').

Yeah, I was surprised at how much it swings, but it's high enough it shouldn't matter (and easy enough to not use the cards for a month, let it rebound, then borrow whatever I need to borrow). The report from my bank never says why. It does list factors that contribute to my score, but they're all "good" (low usage as % of available, all payments on time, etc). And never change.

I'm signed up for all the credit bureaus free accounts so I can freeze/unfreeze my credit. They send out reports monthly, along with one of my CCs. All of them have the reason. And yeah, the score is ~800 so it doesn't really matter. Still interesting to see how it moves with relatively small balance changes.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#94

Post by [deleted] »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #43

> Even if a lender thinks the customer would be a good risk, the lender has to buy a FICO score regardless. This isn't completely correct. For a period I had no FICO score, yet I was able to secure a loan from a Credit Union. It did require me to show my assets and income flow, but the Credit Union was able to provide me with a loan. The score from what I have gathered when I learn really rewards those who remain in…

[deleted]

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#95

Post by ghaff »

mschuster91 wrote: post #92
ghaff wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not opposed to the idea but someone needs to hold the bag when mistakes are made and then you're essentially back to having title insurance in some form even if it's the general taxpayer that is doing the funding.

> I'm not opposed to the idea but someone needs to hold the bag when mistakes are made Well, that's obvious: the local authority in charge of record keeping.

So, no, it's not obvious. Where I live that would be some combination of the county and the the town, given the Registrar of Deeds is a county position and things like property tax and liens are handled at the town level. And the county really just handles some legal matters and doesn't collect any taxes so that sort of means the state.

To quote a previous comment it's all a bit of a mess. "All" you need to do is revamp property record keeping across the US and title insurance would be less of a big deal.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#96

Post by Turing_Machine »

lenerdenator wrote: post #47
miki123211 wrote: post #35

If you think this is a "capitalists being evil" problem and not an "regulators over-regulating" problem, you should pay particular attention to fragments of the article: > It’s not that hard to come up with a model for underwriting that is reasonably accurate; any bank with scale could probably do it. But FICO uses trade secrets, copyright, patents, or restrictive contracts to block anyone from doing so. > First, the…

The capitalists regularly lobby government to destroy their competition and make holes in regulations that would cause major disruptions to their business models. The light truck exemption to CAFE rules is a great example.

[flagged]

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#97

Post by mschuster91 »

ghaff wrote: post #95
mschuster91 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not opposed to the idea but someone needs to hold the bag when mistakes are made Well, that's obvious: the local authority in charge of record keeping.

So, no, it's not obvious. Where I live that would be some combination of the county and the the town, given the Registrar of Deeds is a county position and things like property tax and liens are handled at the town level. And the county really just handles some legal matters and doesn't collect any taxes so that sort of means the state. To quote a previous comment it's all a bit of a mess. "All" you need to do is rev…

The US has a lot of historical baggage that desperately needs a thorough cleanup. There should not be two (or more) "sources of truth" for things affecting a property or alternatively, notaries, lawyers or whatever y'all use to deal with transferring real estate should be mandated to warn their clients if there is more than one place where records are kept.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#98

Post by chollida1 »

flerchin wrote: post #39
chollida1 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Title insurance is a much bigger scam/cost. I wouldn't cut out Title insurance, I have two friends for whom it saved low 7 digits each due to fraud in one case and liens in another. It's incredibly important in today's market and I can't see how you can call it a scam, unless you also view car/health/life insurance as a scam as well, in which case we just disagree:)

It could be handled with a government maintained database for orders of magnitude less resources. There should not be giant title insurance buildings in every city.

Ok, so if someone impersonates me and sells my home and runs off with the money this is one scenario that title insurance covers my losses. How does a government database help in this case?

This is a scenario that happens more often than you'd think with empty condos and a foreign owner who isn't around to look after their property.

You'd still need title insurance even though you have a "government maintained database"

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#99

Post by lenerdenator »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #96
lenerdenator wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The capitalists regularly lobby government to destroy their competition and make holes in regulations that would cause major disruptions to their business models. The light truck exemption to CAFE rules is a great example.

[flagged]

You'll find more and more there's very little difference in practice.

Re: FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel

#100

Post by flerchin »

chollida1 wrote: post #98
flerchin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be handled with a government maintained database for orders of magnitude less resources. There should not be giant title insurance buildings in every city.

Ok, so if someone impersonates me and sells my home and runs off with the money this is one scenario that title insurance covers my losses. How does a government database help in this case? This is a scenario that happens more often than you'd think with empty condos and a foreign owner who isn't around to look after their property. You'd still need title insurance even though you have a "government maintained databa…

That scenario is in fact not covered by title insurance. Title insurance would be for the schmuck who bought your house.

I'm not saying that the function of title insurance companies would go away, but it would largely be obviated by an accurate single source of truth for land titling, and yes some insurance function that the government could provide for a much smaller fee.

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