HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

https://youtu.be/aRrDsbUdY_k?t=5m23s

http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/20/3363914/wrong-turn-apple-i...

http://www.dailytech.com/Lockheeds+F22+Raptor+Gets+Zapped+by...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CG-48)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

⬐ striking

The first one isn't a product that can be sold but rather a systemic failure.

The rest of them didn't kill anyone.

iOS 6 Maps was definitely a pretty big mistake, but Google Maps was available the majority of the time it was broken. I guess I can let you have that one, since it was pretty appallingly bad and because not everyone knew you could download the actually good Maps app.

The next two examples were unfortunate mistakes where a tiny bug caused a massive failure, and these things happen sometimes. They didn't ship a broken product, just a product with a worse-than-expected bug. I feel like that's understandable when your target platform is a damned jet airplane or ship, and your underlying platform is some complicated 35 "Intel i960" mess running Ada[1] or 27 Pentium Pro computers all running Windows NT 4.0.[2] I'm not sure what you expected.

And yes, the loss of the Mars Orbiter was awful, and yes the error was noticed by two different people who said something about it.[3] I think this might be the most applicable scenario to your point, where a broken product was shipped broken on purpose because of stupid time pressure.

Two of five isn't too bad, but it hardly shows a pattern of shipping broken stuff for profit. Sometimes people want profit, but many times people make mistakes.

1: http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-12/is..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CG-48)#Smart_shi...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_...

⬐ partycoder

You can have a bad traffic accident if your maps app tells you to enter a street with opposing traffic.

Now, true. Mars Climate Observer didn't kill anyone. But to build that equipment the government had put money away from health and education, which saves people and prevents violence, and that indirectly kills people. It's not a closed system.

Some steps to monitor your credit (USA):

1. Signup for https://www.creditkarma.com. Yes, you can argue about giving your credentials to a 3rd party company and they show you ads but credit karma sends me real time activity on my credit report FOR FREE. I get offers etc but I am happy since I can keep an eye on my credit report from all agencies. (except Experian who want you to pay them for report).

2. Get a free credit report once a year from https://https://www.annualcreditreport.com

3. Get your FICO score from discover [0] for free OR Open a credit card with Citi cards [1] and I think for $95/Year fee, they give you free FICO score which is the score that majority of lenders use. There are many other companies that offer FICO score for a fee but this was a good way for me since I needed that type of card anyway.

[0] https://www.discover.com/free-credit-score/

[1] https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/FICO-Score

4. Check your credit card and bank statements every few days. I do it once a week. It is a good habit. For this step, do it manually. Don't rely on mint or tools like that. Check the transactions manually.

5. Setup alerts with your bank/credit card for transactions with a certain threshold. For example, I have alerts for anything over $10. For under $10, see Step 4. This is another step in case you do have a fraud.

5. Don't give out your SSN or credit information to anyone unless absolutely sure. Never give these on a phone call with any company unless you know that you called that company and they need the info (example: health insurance etc).

6. If you ever get a call from a Collection Agency, do not give them your information right away. Lot of collection calls are plain fraud or incorrect. Ask them to send a letter with details (genuine ones will do anyway). Read this from FTC about debt collection to educate yourself

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0149-debt-collection

These steps will keep you safe for the most part.

Fun fact about credit reports: See this video by John Oliver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRrDsbUdY_k

⬐ mcshicks

In California at least you can "security freeze" your credit reports so no one can apply for credit in your name. You have to temporarily "unfreeze" them (with a pin code) for someone to get a report. I was a victim of identity theft many years ago (from an employee in my company no less), and while I didn't loose any money, it was a huge hassle to straighten it out. If you don't regularly need services that require a credit report freezing them is much simpler than monitoring the credit agency. I did this many years ago and it really is a lot simpler solution in my opinion than constant monitoring.

Incidentally when I was an identity theft victim they didn't remove the incorrect information, they just said the fraudulent credit cards were "never late" and thus would not affect my score. I thought that was lame.

https://oag.ca.gov/idtheft/facts/freeze-your-credit

⬐ loeg

> 3. Get your FICO score from discover [0] for free OR Open a credit card with Citi cards [1] and I think for $95/Year fee, they give you free FICO score which is the score that majority of lenders use. There are many other companies that offer FICO score for a fee but this was a good way for me since I needed that type of card anyway.

As well as Discover, Barclays and USAA credit cards both offer (one of) your credit scores without paying an annual fee.

⬐ ropiku

American Express too.

However the bigger issue is checking the whole credit report not just the score.

⬐ mng2

I have calendar reminders set four months apart to get and review credit reports, going round-robin through credit agencies. This gets me a (free) credit report 3 times a year.

I have a Citi Doublecash with no annual fee and they provide a credit score. Been with them for many years though so your eligibility may vary.

⬐ xanderstrike

Minor correction -- there's no fee to check your credit score with Citi cards.

⬐ edoceo

#2 doesn't work. That site is super buggy and the Experian connection hasn't worked for 4+ years.

⬐ justinlardinois

I've never had any issues with it myself.

⬐ justinlardinois

Well, just went to pull my Experian report. It works, but it's certainly less than optimal.

TransUnion and Equifax give you PDFs of your report that you can easily download. Experian just shows you an HTML document. There's a "printer friendly" version, but the only thing that's really different is they removed the navigation and the "Dispute" buttons that are listed next to every item.

On top of that, there's a position:fixed header on the print friendly document, which most browsers will render once on every page. In this case, that causes information at the top of each page of the report to be covered up. I was able to use Chrome's DOM inspector to set it to position:static and then Print > Save as PDF, but it really shouldn't be that hard.

⬐ loeg

I have also never had much luck with the annual report site.

⬐ ourmandave

Last time I tried I couldn't get past the question with the list, "Which of these phone numbers have you had in the past? (check all that apply)"

I've had a lot of numbers in the past because my daughter's phone was in my name, or I changed carriers and my number wouldn't transfer.

⬐ loeg

Yes. I too "failed" the public information database of my history. :-/

⬐ sschueller

All this to just keep your record clean and not have your bank misplace your money?

These are things you should not have to worry about in life.

They are expected and in most modern countries are not something you need to worry about.

When I tell my friends about this in the US at first they don't believe me. The can't believe that the banks make so many mistakes (such as credit/debit the wrong person for a check) and that there is this thing called a credit score which you have very little control over and can ruin you without you doing anything wrong.

The amount of time I have wasted in fixing credit scores and dealing with overdraft fees because someone else's check was pulled on the wrong account is staggering.

⬐ codegeek

Unfortunately, yes you need to do all these otherwise there is a risk that you have something on your credit report and you will never know. I hate the system too but right now, this is what it is.

⬐ blakeyrat

I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that the US is the only "modern" (however you define that) country on Earth that has credit scores.

⬐ Kluny

should isn't a useful word when you're deciding what to actually do. If you want to change the status quo, start working to change it. But in the meantime you have to pay attention and look after your properties.

Some employers will even decide who to hire based on their credit score. Bad credit = can't get a job. John Oliver did a bit on the whole credit scoring system scam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRrDsbUdY_k

John Oliver covered this recently. Many background check agencies won't let you run a background check on yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRrDsbUdY_k

⬐ Someone1234

People like to claim that background checks are used when someone is placed into a trusted position. However in my experience lower end jobs (where you're often trusted less) are often much MORE likely to have a background check.

To give a specific example: Work in a fast food place handling small amounts of cash and they'll background check you. Work in a company handling SSNs, Credit Cards, and medical records and they didn't even ask me if I had a criminal record (I don't).

So I cannot help but wonder if ex-convicts are going to suffer more while getting a low end job than they would if they were applying for high end positions. I guess the assumption is if you have a degree that you are somehow above crime...

I guess that's why so called "white collar crime" often goes undetected for longer and is often more successful overall.

⬐ iamdave

I definitely observed this phenomenon while I was out of work for a little while, and even directly asked the recruiter when looking at two roles on their career portal: "Why does the lower wage, lower responsibility, and lower risk job come with higher barriers for employment eligibility than its managerial counterpart?"

She asked what I meant so I spelled it out more directly "Why does a file clerk role require a background check, credit check and drug screen but this role here, a Senior accounting role asks only for relevant job history?" She admitted she didn't know.

I wish I could say this was limited to that company, but I saw it so much over the course of about 3 months that I started to really wonder what the hell is going on..

⬐ hobs

Yeah, temporary firms/staffing agencies are huge consumers of background checks, and they often are just hiring someone to run a machine/be an admin.

⬐ Kinnard

How bizarre, this seems economically unjustifiable, that is to say— I smell a rat.

⬐ whatok

Believe it all comes down to insurance and having someone else to blame. Think about why most jobs use urine instead of hair for drug testing. Hell of a lot cheaper, don't care about accuracy, and just want to be able to say that they did it.

⬐ hobs

The costs for hiring are enormous, and the cost for lost revenue are big for hiring agencies.

If I want to farm your labor, I need to find you, make sure you are going to work long enough at a site for me to make money, and I have to hope that you wont do something that will sour the relationship I have with "my" customer (the business I am renting you to.)

The margins for staffing places are actually pretty small per person, so its not so much unjustifiable as it is dehumanizing.

⬐ KirinDave

So why increase your costs using data that has no appreciable correlation with what affects your bottom line?

I worked temp out of college in the dot com bust. I lived out of a borrowed car. I was desperate for work and had relevant skills, but many temp agencies wouldn't touch me. It was stupid and dehumanizing, but it was also pretty unjustifiable.

⬐ Bluestrike2

Because it shifts perceived responsibility for any failures from the temp agency to the service that performed the background checks.

⬐ KirinDave

Except that the BC folks would never accept such responsibility, and the temp agencies require employers to waive the right to claim (limiting the damages to reputation).

So maybe that is the logic, but it's specious logic.

⬐ superuser2

Nothing compared to the reputation damage and fallout when something happens and the client is incredulous. "You hired a felon?"

⬐ adrusi

The rich are just suspicious of the poor. They trust people from similar backgrounds as themselves. Employers irrationally think they can gauge a person's trustworthiness just by interacting with them for a few hours during an interview. And trustworthiness is virtually impossible to test for in higher paying roles: people earning low wages ususally don't have the power to defraud the company too much, but there's a lot of people with that limited power so they're a threat. Wealthier employees could engage in petty fraud too, but they have less incentive to do so because they don't need the money as much, and there's not as many of them, so even if they did it would be less damaging. Instead the concern over richer, more skilled and educated employees is that they'll steal large amounts from the company, and unless they end up in prison, nobody will ever know (contrast with working-class fraud which will usually only end up losing the person their job, so there's less incentive to avoid being caught).

There's probably no conspiracy, just generalized classism.

⬐ r00fus

To generalize: it's similarity/ingroup bias - as a human you are biased to be more sympathetic to people like yourself.

It takes a lot of empathy (something that is actively selected against in our corporation dominated workforce) to bypass that.

Add into that the gravity of money (ie, rich get richer) and political corruption (money buys power) and you have a basic framework for classism.

⬐ Kinnard

Are there some people who exhibit the trait of being biased toward people who are not like them?

⬐ lettergram

That may be your experience, but having worked for a large medical billing and large bank, both do heavy background checks. I've even been finger printed, and had my Facebook searched.

⬐ sillysaurus3

Your Facebook searched? What do you mean?

⬐ lettergram

I mean, they asked for my login information to search my Facebook. I actually declined, but they still ran through all the public information and connections I had.

⬐ tibbon

Best answers I can think of here:

"I'm sorry, I don't use Facebook as it seems an invasion of personal privacy"

or

"Ok, here's my Facebook account" and then give them some uber-sanitized account that just has photos of kittens and messages on your mom's wall about her cookies.

⬐ Lawtonfogle

Why not: Here is my link to my facebook portal (include public link). I cannot give you my credentials because I am in a legal agreement with facebook to not give my credentials to anyone.

⬐ pavel_lishin

In case one, wouldn't it be incredibly obvious that you're lying, and in the second case, only marginally plausible that you keep such an empty, vanilla profile?

⬐ matwood

So not having a facebook account means I'm lying? I really do not have a facebook account so I guess by definition I'm a lier :/

⬐ pavel_lishin

No, that was addressed to tibbon's comment, which I read as him actually having a Facebook account.

⬐ lmkg

Actually, one valid answer is "That's illegal in the state of California."

It works best if you're actually in California, but even if not, it might give them pause.

⬐ facetube

That results in them finding a different excuse to not hire you and then documenting it in case you sue.

⬐ erroneousfunk

Had your Facebook searched? Does that mean they ask for your login and look through it, or look through all the publicly-available information?

⬐ lettergram

I mean, they asked for my login information to search my Facebook. I declined, but they still ran through all the public information and connections I had.

Later, I worked on some of their creepy background checking software. Essentially, without the login, they can still get all the information about me they need.

⬐ jeromegv

This will of course depend on your existing privacy settings.

⬐ None

None

⬐ fucking_tragedy

Those change over time so Facebook exposes more of your information you meant to keep hidden.

I have to check my Facebook every few months to find out what sort of content is now visible to a new group of people that was hidden by me in the past.

⬐ sghodas

Really? I haven't found that to be the case. Everything that I've set to specific privacy groups (me only, friends, etc) has stayed the same.

⬐ ipsin

If this happens to anyone else, just quote Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. https://www.facebook.com/terms

4. You will not share your password (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.

It's not iron-clad, but it may dissuade the nosy.

⬐ psykpsyk

Had your Facebook searched? Either you were really desperate for a job or you're spineless...

⬐ richardthered

You've had your Facebook searched? What was that process like?

I've gone through tons of background checks / drug screens for federal and state governments, and financial companies. But I've never had a Facebook search...

Is that even legal?

⬐ matwood

They have probably looked at your public facebook.

⬐ matwood

FYI http://m.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2016/04/opm-seeking-social...

⬐ vitd

It's legal, though I believe Facebook has stated that it's against their terms of service.

⬐ Lawtonfogle

My own experience has been background checks always.

Work with military data was by far the most extensive (required approved clearance). Government positions were the most varied, with one being very thorough (not quite as bad as the military), and an other being the least intensive. Financial institution were middle of the road.

But everywhere where I had database access required a background check and only one place didn't require a drug test. The lower income positions I worked required neither.

One thing I did notice from my friends is that smaller shops are less likely to have institutionalize policies. A small startup is less likely to background check you than a fast food chain likely has a policy requiring it. But this applies to any large organizations, not just lower income positions.

⬐ valine

The company I interned for last year year ran a background check on me. I kept getting emails from them requesting 10 years of work history. In 2005 I was 8 years old. I think they put me down as unemployed.

⬐ Gibbon1

Aiiiigghhh! When I was 8 years old Jimmy Hendrix was still alive.

⬐ whatok

I also had a background check asking for ten years of history. Many of the companies were either out of business or outsourced HR which created issues. I also ran into an issue with job titles not matching exactly or external job title (which I was familiar with from the hiring process) not matching up with internal title (which I was not familiar with at all). The month or so of back and forth on this was easily the most stressful period of my life.

⬐ morgante

Classism lies at the heart of it. If someone is in a lower income job, higher ups are desperate to avoid hiring the "wrong sort of those people." In higher end jobs, they'll readily make excuses for past behavior (oh, it was just a youthful mistake). It sometimes amazes me that I've been hired into positions where I could have singlehandedly cost a company millions of dollars in revenue, but never had a single background check.

----

Of course, a much more charitable explanation would be that there's an "efficiency wage" effect behind background checks. For good jobs, the job itself is good enough that employers assume you'd be stupid to somehow jeopardize it by stealing or committing a crime. In contrast, shitty retail jobs are bad and everybody knows it—the company assumes that your loss from the job wouldn't be big enough to offset the gains you might make from stealing. This could be a similar explanation for why immigrants commit fewer crimes: they have more to lose.

⬐ drzaiusapelord

>Classism lies at the heart of it.

This seems overly-dramatic. The reality is that there is a lot of petty crime with people who handle cash, compared to those on a white collar career path. Petty crime happens so often its not even reported, and white collar crime is so rare it makes the news, so you may be skewed to think that casual stealing from retail employers is rare, but it certainly is not.

On top of it, the kinds of people most likely to work with a cash register are those who are largely unknowns. Yes, I do trust the guy with 15 years experience in finance more compared to the teen getting his first or second job to better handle money. Also criminality goes down with age. Experience tells me 15 year career guy has made it this far without getting arrested and has a lot of skin the in the game. Its not "classist" to think so. Its basic risk analysis. Just because something seems distasteful to you doesn't mean its wrong. I wish more people understood this simple concept.

That said, I've gotten background checked at every white collar job I've had. Companies need a CYA for new hires and that's how its typically done. This has been the standard in my field for decades. Not sure where the idea that white collar people are immune from background checks comes from. It certainly isn't common in my peer group.

It may also be that a lot of entry level retail jobs are mostly from large corporate employers who have top-down policies regarding background checks. Sure, Walmart did a check on you but your uncle didn't for a summer job filling out TPS reports at his company. That's not a sign of a conspiracy, but different values/risk assumption from two different organizations.

⬐ erikpukinskis

> Petty crime happens so often its not even reported, and white collar crime is so rare it makes the news

You are making a strong claim about the frequency of unreported events. Where does your data come from?

> Experience tells me 15 year career guy has made it this far without getting arrested and has a lot of skin the in the game

What experience are you talking about? It sounds more like you are making a logical argument, rather than an experiential one: the while collar must be more trustworthy because he has more money to lose. It is obvious to you that the more money you are making, the more honest you must be. That's a logical conclusion at best, not an experience.

⬐ BurningFrog

It seems more likely that the people making hiring decisions for a living do these checks for jobs where it turns out they're useful.

⬐ dikdik

Unfortunately, they have not been proven useful. The credit reporting agencies do sell it to companies as "useful" to measure a candidate's integrity and ability to succeed. However, if you watch John Oliver's segment you will see at least 1 agency testified under oath that they have no evidence to back up their claims.

All it can be said to do is to weed out poor people or conversely allow terrible employers to pinpoint candidates that they can easily abuse because they are so far in debt.

⬐ BurningFrog

Most things people do have not been proven useful scientifically.

That is very different from being proven useless.

⬐ jedberg

Why hasn't there been a class action suit against the credit agencies? Seems like you'd have a pretty good libel case.

I have no contract with any of these agencies, yet they say bad things about me to other people that are inaccurate.

In fact, I've been monetarily harmed. I tried to refinance my mortgage, which would have saved me over $1000 a month, but was denied due to bad credit. When I looked, it was all inaccuracies. That was two years ago, so I can say for a fact that they caused me $24,000 of direct harm so far. I finally just got all the inaccuracies cleared up.

I suspect that I've signed contracts with creditors that allow them to send info to these people, but I know that isn't necessary, because I can file a derogatory mark about anyone I want to as long as I have their SSN.

So, what stops a class action suit against these guys?

⬐ mixmastamyk

Further, I was completely disgusted to learn they are gathering paycheck/salary information as well and selling it third and fourth parties:

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/exclusive-your-employer-ma...

http://www.bankrate.com/financing/credit-cards/your-salary-i...

⬐ None

None

⬐ morgante

I presume their defense would be that they were simply diligently passing along information which others had told them and had no reason to doubt. You wouldn't sue Google for listing a libelous search result, so they shouldn't be held accountable. You'd then be forced to track down each libelous reporter and sue them directly.

⬐ thedevil

"You wouldn't sue Google for listing a libelous search result"

Google functions as an index that points you to another source. They don't actually have control over the source.

The credit bureaus are the source.

⬐ morgante

Credit bureaus don't create any information themselves, they just list what your other creditors say about you.

At least that's what they claim.

⬐ ascagnel_

They are the source for any new information they provide, which in this case is the score. They can deflect some responsibility by saying they base it only on information they receive, but then the question becomes why do they do nothing to verify the data they receive.

⬐ jedberg

> You wouldn't sue Google for listing a libelous search result

That's true, but they don't calculate a number about my creditworthiness. It's the number that would be the problem.

If the agencies only passed information on I could see them maybe being allowed to pass, but since they calculate a number, they are now presenting new, inaccurate, information. They have a responsibility to verify the accuracy of their data if they are going to create new data from it.

⬐ aianus

> If the agencies only passed information on I could see them maybe being allowed to pass, but since they calculate a number, they are now presenting new, inaccurate, information. They have a responsibility to verify the accuracy of their data if they are going to create new data from it.

Their responsibility is to their paying client, the lender, not you. I'm sure the lender would have a civil case if they were getting a lot of false reports and it was causing damages to their bottom line in missed loan opportunities.

⬐ pc86

> They have a responsibility to verify the accuracy of their data if they are going to create new data from it.

Please cite the legal statute indicating this.

You can't just throw the word "responsibility" into the air and expect people to take it at fact value. In fact, they have no legal responsibility to verify any of the data they receive from anyone. Consumers have multiple opportunities to dispute invalid items on their credit:

1. Free credit reports from all major reporting agencies once a year from annualcreditreport.com

2. The same credit reports more often for a fee

3. At any point where they are denied financing due to negative items on their credit report, regardless of the last time they accessed their free report

⬐ Domenic_S

It's a shady and powerful system.

The logic goes something like this: the credit reporting agencies simply provided facts (reported to them by others) to the mortgage company, who made their own decision about your creditworthiness.

Who is at fault in your situation? The mortgage company? No, they took your report at face value and then made their own decision. The reporting agencies? No, they just barf back data fed to them by individual creditors and run it through their arbitrary algorithm. The individual creditors? Perhaps, or maybe they sent an accurate report but somewhere along the line two numbers in an SS# got flipped (innocent mistake) and now you're carrying someone else's bad credit.

Scores of companies each have these tiny slices of responsibility, making it really hard to pin one actor with all of it (ie, to name a defendant).

The incentives are perverse. The worse your score the more expensive to borrow. Best case for a lender is to have a customer who should have a high credit score but doesn't because of mistakes like these -- you get the credit risk of a AAA borrower, but can charge subprime rates. Best of both worlds.

⬐ toomuchtodo

> Who is at fault in your situation?

The credit agency. If they're reporting inaccurate information, that they haven't verified, that's libel.

This is something the CFPB [+] needs to clamp down on hard.

[+] http://www.consumerfinance.gov/

⬐ Domenic_S

I'm no lawyer, but I have a hard time imagining a successful libel suit here. I would guess the reporting agencies have some set of terms & conditions that say something to the effect of "You (the reporter) certify that this report is true and correct to the best of your knowledge".

I mean, come on -- they're aggregators. They can't go investigate every single report they get; they have to depend on reporters to tell the truth.

Importantly, the reporting agencies do not make claims of creditworthiness about you. They present your "credit history" (accurate or not) and the lenders themselves make their own determination. It's an awful catch-22.

⬐ TheOtherHobbes

There have been cases in the UK where individuals have successfully sued a lender and/or collection agency because inaccurate or questionable credit records generated costs and/or inconvenience for them.

I'm not aware of any cases where the agencies themselves have been sued.

⬐ jedberg

> agencies do not make claims of creditworthiness about you.

Which is a load of crap. They present a number and even say "above 750 is excellent". It's in their own marketing materials. How is that not making a claim of creditworthiness?

⬐ Domenic_S

Ok, you may be technically correct. Experian, for example, says "Higher scores represent a greater likelihood that you'll pay back your debts so you are viewed as being a lower credit risk to lenders."

Even so, lenders still decide what to do with that information. Some credit cards may approve you at a 500 score. Others may not. Many lenders will tier your rate based on score. Ultimately the decision of whether or not to extend credit and what rate you get is up to the lender.

⬐ toomuchtodo

> Even so, lenders still decide what to do with that information. Some credit cards may approve you at a 500 score. Others may not. Many lenders will tier your rate based on score. Ultimately the decision of whether or not to extend credit and what rate you get is up to the lender.

If you're providing factually incorrect information on a person, that someone is then going to make a financial decision around, you should be held liable if your business is to provide factual information on someone regarding the credit worthiness.

Unless we're just going to say that credit agencies have no requirement to verify the data they collect. In that case, let's just rule them illegal through legislation and allow them to dissolve (most of the first world does not have credit agencies for consumers).

⬐ jedberg

> most of the first world does not have credit agencies for consumers

Interesting, I didn't realize that. How does credit work where they don't have the agencies? Like if I want to buy a house in Germany or get a credit card in France, does the bank just do all their own research?

⬐ toomuchtodo

I don't want to generalize too much, but yes, the lender does the majority of the legwork in other countries.

⬐ germanier

I don't know about most other countries but both France and Germany do have credit scoring agencies. The difference is that it mostly deals with negative entries, i.e. you don't build credit by repaying loans but rather by never falling behind on your payment schedule (the German system uses a few additional factors). Banks usually don't care if you ever successfully repaid a loan nor do they ask that question.

I don't know what US banks do apart from getting a credit score if somebody applies for a loan but I don't assume it's much less than banks do here: Assessing your income stability and looking at your large fixed expenses.

I also don't think there are any, say, OECD countries without such credit scoring agencies.

⬐ Domenic_S

Their business is to aggregate what others have told them. It's consensus + automation at its purest. If you have a lot of different companies saying you've been a good boy for a long time, you get a high score. If a couple companies say you're garbage (true or not) you get a bad score. The agencies simply aggregate this information. I guess a lender could cut out the middleman and call each of your previous lenders themselves, but who's to say the result wouldn't be the same (+ the added cost of having to do that).

Conceptually I have no disagreement with you, and I'm certainly no reporting agency apologist. I spent a lot of time on my own report correcting an unfortunate combination of youthful indiscretion and erroneous reporting and I guess I realized that the rage is wasted. There's just no one place to pin the blame, the whole thing is a complex system (intentionally) with perverse incentives (intentionally) and you can either play the game or resign yourself to a life of credit denials.

I hate it too, but I can't see a better way that serves the same scope and scale at the same price. The only place to fight, I think, is 1) for better corrections process, and 2) penalties for companies that incorrectly report.

⬐ rlucas

You are lumping together a number of players under "they."

The number itself typically comes from Fair Issac -- who traditionally sold a black box algorithm to project a multidimensional vector onto a single scalar.

The data itself comes from a Credit Reporting Agency, who lumps together payment histories and public records.

That data in turn came from creditors and public sources.

I'll happily agree, though: the entire keiretsu benefits from the general public thinking it all sort of just happens and is authoritative and predictive in that single scalar.

⬐ None

None

⬐ pc86

> If they're reporting inaccurate information, that they haven't verified, that's libel.

No it's not, even a little. They are under no legal obligation to independently verify every piece of data sent to them.

In fact, the #1 easiest way to remove a negative mark on your credit is simply to request documentation validating the debt. Even with legitimate debts it's not a foregone conclusion that they will provide any verifying documentation within the required time frame.

⬐ toomuchtodo

> No it's not, even a little. They are under no legal obligation to independently verify every piece of data sent to them.

Verify what they receive about you? Sure, don't verify all of the data. Verify the data they're publishing about you? Yes, they do.

⬐ Navarr

I think it's pretty clear that it's the reporter who is at fault. Your only defense is that it might be a mistake on their part - but that still puts them at fault.

Possibly legally too? IANAL

⬐ jedberg

> the credit reporting agencies simply provided facts (reported to them by others) to the mortgage company, who made their own decision about your creditworthiness.

That's not true. They reported the information, and a number they came up with on their own. That's new information they created. It is their responsibility to verify any data they use to create that rating.

⬐ falcolas

They didn't necessarily create a number - in my experience working with a company who implemented and ran automated credit checks against business criteria, few companies actually pull your FICO; they simply create their own number from the data provided by the credit unions.

Your FICO score costs money to pull, which is why it's not an actual part of the credit report.

⬐ Domenic_S

The number is their arbitrary summary of the "facts" contained in the report for easy digestion. If you feed in the same facts to the algorithm over and over, you'll get the same number over and over. Notably, the number has no intrinsic value -- every lender everywhere uses it to score creditworthiness, yes, but it's the lenders who do that. The agencies give them a number and say "do what you will with this information."

I'm the first in line to say the system is horribly broken. I spent years cleaning up inaccuracies on my reports in order to buy a house. Credit reporting is opaque, unfair, and inaccuracies are nearly impossible to correct. It's what makes me wary of automation controlling everything -- manual underwriting used to be a thing, but now almost all of it is automated based on arbitrary numbers and reports that may or may not be true, with no good way to ensure accuracy.

⬐ presidentender

> every lender everywhere uses it to score creditworthiness

SoFi doesn't.

⬐ bitsoda

On the topic of credit checks, it would be oh so nice to have two-step verification whenever a hard inquiry is made. As a recent credit fraud victim, it's been a nightmare spending hours on the phone with the credit bureaus. Some let you dispute inquiries online, while others require a phone call. I ended up just freezing my accounts (for a fee of course, and another fee to unfreeze), and am gonna wait it out until two years pass.

All of this could have been easily prevented if I were required to reply via a text message sent from the credit bureaus when an inquiry was made.

Credit cards already have two-step, why not apply it to potentially life-ruining inquiries? Is there too much money in mafia-like companies who will keep the bad guys away if you just pay them a monthly fee like LifeLock?

The credit system infuriates me to no end.

⬐ spacehome

Nice for whom? You're not the customer.

⬐ ikeboy

If you're a victim of identity fraud, you're supposed to be able to freeze the accounts for free.

Edit: see https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faq... and https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0279-extended-fraud-al...

It's not free in all states:

>The cost to place and lift a freeze, and how long the freeze lasts, depend on state law: In many states, identity theft victims can place a freeze for free, but in others, victims must pay a fee, which is usually about $10.

Although an alert is free, and lasts for 7 years.

⬐ joncrocks

I think the problem is that this is a retrospective step. If you don't know you've been the victim of identity theft, then the first time you might find out about it is when you're trying to make a large/important decision, which may well be the most inconvenient time for it to occur).

Then you've got to sort it all out, and _then_ do the thing you first thought of.

⬐ pc86

To be fair, the tools exist for anyone regardless of income to monitor their credit on at least a yearly basis at no cost to them. Going 5+ years without checking your own credit just because you're not in the market for a house or a new car is pretty high on the list of things most responsible adults don't do.

⬐ matwood

And both my credit cards show real time credit score numbers from the one of the services. It's not perfect, but if the number radically changes that should be a red flag.

⬐ cmdrfred

Should it not be frozen by default? This all sounds like a protection racket. Pay us and we will prevent these sort of things in future.

⬐ ikeboy

Most people would rather have an easier time opening credit cards, and never have a need for greater security.

⬐ cmdrfred

Then feel free to unfreeze it. Your convenience shouldn't be my problem.

⬐ ikeboy

Why should the minorities' desires determine the default?

⬐ cmdrfred

I consider opt-out to be an anti-pattern. You should have to give consent for someone to keep data on you.

⬐ ikeboy

Not sure the relevance. You agree to data being collected every time you apply for a card, open a bank account, rent an apartment, etc. If you don't do any of those things, you won't have a credit file, as far as I know, or if you do it will be based on public data (like your birth, perhaps).

Freezing is not opting out of data collection, it's a control over who can get that data.

⬐ putlake

If you pay, you can place the freeze online. If you want to do it free because you qualify as a (potential) victim of ID theft (e.g. in any data breach), you have to do it by mail. And you must include proof. If they were serious about people being able to do this for free, they'd let you upload data breach documentation online, and get your freeze placed for free.

⬐ travelton

My credit was in the dumps a year ago. I had a few negative marks, debt to credit ratio was off, too many inquiries, etc... I didn't find any mistakes. But, I was able to clean up my credit and raise my score by 120 points by doing the following (YMMV).

1. Set up an account at Credit Karma.

2. Review your Credit Card Utilization. If it's under 30%, you should be doing ok. If not, pay off those balances.

3. Look for derogatory marks. If you see any that are older than 7 years, file a dispute to have them removed (you can do this through CK directly).

Generally, I found that, if an account is closed and older than 5 years, if you file a dispute, the creditor won't care and will either ignore the request (resolving in your favor) or mark it as resolved in your favor.

If you have outstanding balances open in collections, call the collection agency. Here's how that went for me... "Hi, I'm interested in discussing an open collection on my credit. I see you are the owner of the debt." After they pull up the information, ask them "How much are you willing to accept to purge this from my credit?" (They are going to tell you they can't do that. But, they most certainly can!)

If you receive an offer for 20% less (with removal from your credit), take it. Use a credit card (responsibly!) if you don't have the funds immediately available.

If not, make sure they have your phone number on file, hang up and wait. Come the end of the month, I guarantee you they will call with an offer. :)

Tip: Use a Google Voice number, so you can field their phone calls, if they go rogue. When you're negotiating, make sure you write down names, case numbers, account numbers, etc.

4. If you have old accounts on your credit report, don't close them! Closing your accounts hurts your score. Instead, keep them open. If you have a credit card that you never use, set up Netflix to bill to that card, then set up recurring bill pay to pay off the balance every month. This will keep the creditor from closing the account due to inactivity. That credit history will keep your "Age of Credit History" up.

Lastly, if Credit Card Utilization is constantly hurting your score. Contact your existing credit card companies and request a credit line increase (don't open a new card!). A credit line increase will not hurt your Age of Credit History, but a new card will.

⬐ dsp1234

"How much are you willing to accept to purge this from my credit?"

Note that settling debt for less than what was borrowed can also result in additional tax burden because the difference between the loan amount and the amount paid is income.[0][1]

[0] - https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1099c.pdf

[1] - http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tax-consequences-sett...

⬐ shaftway

On top of that, the debt owner is obligated to make sure you receive appropriate tax documents, but in reality they don't particularly care and your documents will get "lost" in the mail. Since most people don't expect this to be taxable income, they're not looking for it.

Then fed and state collectors both delay addressing this until about 2 years before the statute of limitations. You have a ton of interest, fees, and interest on the fees, at which point they slam you with notices and judgements, and wage garnering.

For me they timed it perfectly, getting their last cent about a week before the statute of limitations was up. In the end, a little less than $5000 in debt forgiveness cost me around $18,000.

⬐ toomuchtodo

Also, https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/index#wiki_cre... is extremely helpful regarding collections and credit.

⬐ pmiller2

Calling them up is exactly the wrong thing to do. Always get any communications in writing.

⬐ travelton

When you say it's exactly the wrong thing to do, I think you're being a bit dramatic. Sure, there's some risk... But, ultimately you have the most leverage in the situation. Pay off the debt with a Visa/MC. If the collection agency is going to screw you, you can screw them right back with a charge back.

⬐ pmiller2

It's more a matter of principle than anything. This is a serious business transaction, and you should always have a contract for such things. Even if 95% of collection agencies are perfectly reasonable, there's a good chance you'll get one that isn't at some point.

⬐ pc86

Issuing a chargeback for a valid charge is credit card fraud.

⬐ mrgoldenbrown

>If the collection agency is going to screw you, you can screw them right back with a charge back. If the agency is messing with you in some way, it's not a valid charge.

⬐ FireBeyond

If you have an agreement in writing (ha, good luck), or more likely a recording (make sure to have consent) saying "If I make this payment of $x, you will flag my account as Paid As Agreed", they agree, and then either flag it "Settled" (which is an 'adverse status') or don't, then you have material grounds to argue that the charge is not valid.

Note, this isn't saying anything about whether you owe or do not owe the money - that's an important distinction. You agreed to make a payment for money you owed in exchange for a positive credit record. You can debate the ethics or morality thereof (especially if you're negotiating to pay less than owed, and still have it recorded as paid in full), but it is demonstrable that you did not receive what you asked for. The fact that you owed that money is tangential.

⬐ erroneousfunk

Agreed. About few years ago my credit score (which I checked semi-regularly) took a ~150 point dive, because a collection showed up on it from a $120 medical bill I had four years before.

I had had an internship in another state, went to a clinic with a case of strep throat, they took my information, made a copy of my insurance card, I paid a co-pay, and I thought that was it. Unfortunately, the clinic lost (according to them) the copy of my insurance card, the address they had was entered incorrectly, and no one bothered to call me...

Anyway, I called up the collections agency listed on my credit report, the guy seemed reasonable, I got his name and employee number, paid the bill on the spot, and it completely disappeared from my report the next week. It took just a few minutes on the phone -- poof!

I would be careful about making sure you really owe the money in the first place. In my case, this really should have been paid by insurance four years ago, and a call to the clinic confirmed my suspicions that it was staffed by apathetic morons. The collections agency, on the other hand -- a pleasure to deal with! Much easier to just pay it and move on with my life.

And, yes, there's always the "chargeback" option, although, technically, I'm not sure that would be allowed under your credit card contract. You need to pay the debt because you owe it, and showing that you can take the money back if it doesn't disappear from your report might be tricky, if push came to shove. In hindsight, I probably should have gotten something in writing, but collections agencies don't really have a motivation to be assholes for no reason -- if you pay them, they probably don't want trouble later on.

⬐ nissehulth

Maybe you should watch the show before you comment. Unless your "few negative marks" said that you are a registered sex offender your comment isn't relevant at all.

Also, "improving" your credit score by paying off debt with a credit card seems to be proof that the credit report system is broken.

⬐ sokoloff

?? The video started with a 3+ minute segment on credit ratings and how they affect job prospects and other items in life.

⬐ Spooky23

Never, ever, ever call, respond to, acknowledge or otherwise interact with a collection agency unless you know what you're doing, especially with old debts.

With an old debt, the bottom feeder collections agencies pay like $0.05 on the dollar. Once you make contact, you reanimate the debt for 7 years, and the collector can sell it for $0.40-50 on the dollar.

⬐ wheaties

Not completely true. There's some nuance to it but essentially you have to acknowledge it or give them cause to "revive" it, i.e. pay some of it:

http://www.moneycrashers.com/zombie-debt-collectors/

⬐ snuxoll

When you contact a collector you reset the statue of limitations, but derogatory marks can only ever remain on your credit report for 7 years from the date of first delinquency.

⬐ rlucas

Credit is, at its core, trust. Trust, well-placed, makes everything about humanity better. Seen that way it feels warm and fuzzy.

But, "credit," meaning the business of telling you whom you can trust (like a bureau), is very very weird indeed.

Without pre-aggregated or nearly-instantly-compiled predictions about trust, it can only spread out in a personal way. But impersonal relations are crucial to trade, to fairness, to the open society (that is, you shouldn't be constrained to trade only with your family/tribe/neighbors).

Hence, a credit bureau, in the ideal, is a trust-promoting mechanism -- something meant to facilitate the best in mankind. And it rewards faithfulness to promises.

Furthermore, in most commerce we can use a default assumption of "trust." Most people will return the rental car, will repay the loan, will queue up to pay for the groceries, etc.

Here's the rub: with the assumption of trust, then the target outcome to model (the labels you're looking for in ML terms) are the defaults or "don't trust" outcomes.

Which means that the best credit bureaus will hungrily look for all labels of, and all features which can be predictive of, defaults. And it must do so opaquely so as to avoid being gamed by adversaries.

So now the institution which is meant to facilitate trust and reward cooperation ... is a secretive digger for dirty laundry.

Just a reflection. It's weird.

(Background: I spent the last five years starting a fairly successful alternative lender, and a less successful alternative credit bureau.)

⬐ tim333

Oliver was saying it was silly to ask for a credit check for firework selling but looking on Criagslist they advance you the tent and stock and then rely on you returning the unsold stuff and a percent of the sales. There'd probably be a higher chance of someone with bad credit running off with the stock.

⬐ jackmaney

> There'd probably be a higher chance of someone with bad credit running off with the stock.

Do you have anything resembling evidence to back up that assertion?

⬐ orblivion

Do you require evidence for every common sense judgement you make?

⬐ jeremysmyth

Common sense judgements are how harmful stereotypes are born.

⬐ orblivion

Maybe so, but it's literally all we have to go by, day to day, until somebody has the resources to conduct a proper study.

⬐ iamdave

You know, there's a degree of uncomfortable truth to this that requires the words "common sense" to be thrust between quotation marks for the statement to work.

⬐ MichaelBurge

Being advanced stock is literally being given a loan of that stock, and the primary motivation of credit scoring is to be able to judge whether someone will default on their loan.

Admittedly, that only defers the question to, "Does credit scoring accomplish its primary motivation?" But you could become a loanshark millionaire if it turned out that people with low credit score were equal or better borrowers than people with high credit score, since the existing financial industry isn't serving them as well.

⬐ maxdemarzi

This is exactly what Avant in Chicago is doing.

⬐ baddox

A lot of John Oliver's little examples are there just for the throw-away joke.

⬐ cableshaft

My main problem is it's difficult and time consuming to get back on top of things if you have a string of badly timed emergencies that leave you unable to pay for awhile. That can leave you in a place where you have to let one bill slip to catch up on another, and then next month let the other bill slip to catch up on two others, and then the next month let something slip and...oh crap, another emergency, now you've slipped a little further down the hole!... and its just a vicious cycle.

Even if you start making good money again it can take a long time to right that boat. And the whole time your credit score is swirling the drain, making it even more difficult to get the funds you need to balance everything or weather future emergencies, and you're too afraid to move, because you don't know how you'll pass the credit check, even though you haven't ever missed a rent payment (it's the highest priority bill).

I really wish there was a little more flexibility in payments. Even just a "you can miss a payment if you double pay to catch up next month without us reporting it" would have helped quite a bit.

I also think there needs to be a more universal, centralized place where you can set up online bill pay without it automatically paying (I tell it to pay a particular company a particular amount). I've been locked out of being able to pay my bill on their online sites and it's a nightmare calling or jumping through the hoops to get your account unlocked to be able to pay online again.

⬐ adrenalinelol

When I took a job on Wall St, I was not vetted at all by any type of third party agency (credit, background, etc...). It was only 6 or so years ago I had a minimum wage job ringing up products at a convenience store, I had a drug test every 6 months, a credit check (had never owned a CC at that point), and a criminal background check.

⬐ swozey

Candidates on Wall Street are easily filtered by education. Don't want to hire him? Say you're only looking to hire candidates from McCombs. Have people that for whatever reason you want the ability to not hire, but can't base it on experience/educational requirements (low skill, retail, etc jobs)? Well, FICO, drug testing and background checks will give you all the reasons you need so your state Workforce Commission doesn't consider it an issue.

⬐ mixmastamyk

There's another problem with credit that can be as difficult as bad credit, and that is no credit. I have plenty of money so no real need for credit, especially credit cards. My car is over ten years old but in great condition since I maintain it well. Former car purchases have fallen off my credit report, they "expire" after a decade I guess. Last year we almost lost out on our current apartment when moving, it was scary.

I'm not even sure what to do to fix the situation, since I'm not interested in credit cards or a new car right away. Any tips?

⬐ x0054

I am totally with you, I can not stand to be in debt or having any outstanding credit card debt. But that said, I maintain a Costco AmEx (soon to be Visa I guess) and use it for everything. At the end of the month I just pay it off. To be honest I don't much care about my credit, it's under my wife's name any way. The reasons I use the Credit Card is to protect my self against fraud. Cash is king, of course, but not always convenient to pay with. And for online purchases you are forced to use either a Debit or a Credit card. With a Debit card, if someone steals your account, it's your money on the line. With Credit Card, it's the banks. They created the shitty system that is so easy to hack, let them pay for the fraud and deal with it. My credit card has been stolen 3 times in the last 2 years alone. One time by an AT&T rap, they actually caught and prosecuted her. But the point is, I never had to stress about having money missing from my account. It's a good idea even if you don't care about credit.

⬐ eric_the_read

When I was 16, my mom make me take out (and cosigned for) a $500 loan at our credit union, specifically to ensure I had a credit history. IIRC, I never spent it on anything; I just used it to pay off the loan, and counted the interest as a cost of acquiring credit. At the time it seemed inane, but it makes a lot more sense now.

Do you have a relative or friend who would cosign for a relatively small loan for the same purpose?

⬐ tryitnow

You need to understand that you don't have to "need" a credit card in order for it to make sense to use one, so the fact that you have plenty of money is irrelevant.

In fact there's an older banker's maxim that says "never lend money to someone who needs it."

My recommendation: As long as you are disciplined then start using a credit card for your purchases. Google around and find one from a mainstream providers that provides lots of points and no annual fee. At least 1% back on all your purchases. My Citibank card gets me about 2% back on everything I purchase. So basically I get a little discount on all my purchases for having good credit.

Start using it immediately to build up credit. Like it or not, you're only going to encounter more situations like you did with the apartment. And the older you get, the more suspicious it looks.

If you don't feel you can be disciplined enough to pay it off every month, then just use it for handful of recurring purchases and nothing else, then at least you'll start building a credit history.

⬐ mixmastamyk

I did look for one last year but couldn't find any without stupid fees of one kind or another.

⬐ goda90

A hefty savings and checking account with a national chain bank could also help you land a no fee credit card. They consider it collateral.

⬐ pc86

With no credit, you are not going to get approved for any card where you don't end up paying for the privilege of having it in one way or another. Most like a $40-60 yearly fee. A year or two in with on-time payments you can either convert the card to one without a fee or get a new one without a fee and close that one.

⬐ mixmastamyk

Ok, but I thought they made a lot of money through transaction fees.

⬐ pc86

What does that have to do with anything?

⬐ eric_the_read

They all have stupid fees of one kind or another; the trick is figuring out which ones you can easily avoid. The only fee I personally care about is the annual fee, since I never do balance transfers, cash advances, or leave a balance on my card after the end of the month. I get an Amex annual-fee-free via my Costco membership (sadly, soon it will expire when Costco goes to Visa-only), and an annual fee-free Disney rewards Visa through Chase (which will come in handy this fall, when I do another Disney cruise).

⬐ pavel_lishin

I was under the impression that renting an apartment also contributes to your credit score.

⬐ mixmastamyk

Nope, been renting for years (in Cal) and no bureaus know about it.

⬐ rbobby

Get a credit card. Cut up card into small bits.

⬐ pc86

Credit cards are not for people without "plenty of money." Quite the opposite.

First and foremost, your credit report/score is not a measure of how likely you are to pay back a debt, or how much money you have. It's a measure of how well you can manage and maintain multiple lines of credit simultaneously. That's why you get higher scores for higher account age, for number of accounts (to a point), and for a mix of multiple accounts (revolving, installment, etc).

So by definition if you are not showing that you can maintain and management multiple lines of credit simultaneously, you are higher risk.

And rbobby is wrong, getting a card and cutting it up will do you very little good.

To start you will probably need to get a standard credit card with no rewards, likely one with a small yearly fee. Buy your gas and your groceries and pay off the statement balance in full before the due date every month. Let your credit build slowly. When you can, get a card that offers rewards. Cash back cards are typically best, I have a Chase Freedom card that gives 5% back on rotating categories (gas, groceries, book stores, Amazon, etc). I have a Capital One Venture as well but I rarely use it because the miles accumulated on it (2 miles/year for a $60 annual fee or 1.5 miles/year for no fee) are roughly equivalent to 0.5% cash back if you attempt to do an account credit, and you need 60k+ miles for any flight I would be interested in.

You will still not have top tier credit unless you have some sort of installment loan like a mortgage or car/student loans.

⬐ bayonetz

Recent fraud victim myself. To initiate a long term fraud alert on report you have to get a police report and send it along with copies of identification, etc. via mail seperately to each credit bureau company. That makes it so fraudsters can still try getting credit in your name but the business is supposed to call you to confirm it's you applying. If the fraud poster has an accomplice, say at the shady cell phone kiosk at the mall, they just ignore the warning. Best case is the detected fraudulent hard inquiry stays on your report for up to 4 weeks lowering your score in the meantime. All a big hassle. Guess what you can do instead? Instantly and online pay to have a credit freeze enabled. Then you pay again and again to lift it when you need credit. In some states you are allowed a free credit freeze BUT you need to have gone through fraud, hassled with the police report, and the kicker is, snail mail your requests in both for initial freeze and subsequent temporary suspensions. Obviously I took the instant paid route. What a racket! I should either start a class action lawsuit or perhaps just buy some stock in these jokers.

⬐ pdkl95

Inaccurate claims that damage your reputation enough to harm your ability to e.g. get a job are why we have slander and libel laws. Anybody harmed by an inaccurate credit report should be suing the reporting agency for libel.

Unfortunately, the agencies have specific immunity from libel laws. It's probably going to take another trip to the SCOTUS to fix that example of institutional corruption.

⬐ rlucas

Except that Congress specifically created a regulatory regime for these businesses, and included a wide array of strictures on their practices and a very specific set of remedies for those who are harmed.

That system (FCRA, FDCPA etc.) is of course the product of major lobbying and regulatory capture -- "don't throw me in that briar patch, bre'r fox." But it also does have at least the fig leaf of support by consumer-focused NGOs and populist legislative rhetoricians.

So, no, if you went to the courts you wouldn't even make it to an appeal, much less to SCOTUS.

⬐ learc83

Most employers don't use IQ tests because without proof that an IQ test correlates with job performance they are considered discriminatory. Why are employers so quick to use credit scores?

Many protected classes have lower average credit scores, so I'm not really seeing the difference here between IQ tests and credit checks in this situation.

⬐ quicklyfrozen

Well, you do have more influence on your credit score then your IQ -- it is more reflective of your behavior and level of responsibility. Obviously some end up with bad credit through little fault of their own, but employers (mostly) aren't SJWs so they don't mind false negatives as long as there are more candidates.

Personally I don't think anyone who isn't extending you credit should have access to your report, but that will probably require a legislative change.

⬐ learc83

> Obviously some end up with bad credit through little fault of their own, but employers (mostly) aren't SJWs so they don't mind false negatives as long as there are more candidates.

That's true but the reason Employers don't use IQ tests doesn't have anything to do with false negatives or them caring about fairness. They don't IQ tests because several protected classes score lower on average on IQ tests, so employers have to prove that an IQ test correlates positively with job performance in order to use them. Most employers don't want to deal with this, so they don't use IQ tests.

Several protected classes also have lower average credit scores. It doesn't matter why, just that they do. Therefore it is likely also discriminatory, and and employer should have to support the assertion that a credit score is an indicator of job performance.

My guess is that there haven't been enough lawsuits to scare employers out of using them yet.

⬐ joshuaheard

The problem here is that there is no effective identifier for people. We currently use Social Security numbers, which were not designed for that purpose. We need to have a new national identification system. I think a good idea would be to have two numbers: one public and one private. The public number would be used to identify you in public. The other would remain private and would be used as a confidential identification when matched to the public number, a major PIN, if you will.

⬐ cuchoi

In Chile we only use a public number. I think that having a private one is a major security hole. I find amusing how much you can do with the last 4 digits of anyone's SSN.

⬐ Spooky23

That's a big problem, because there are a ton of scenarios where many people are underrepresented and will fall through the cracks. The poor, elderly and migrant communities, which represent millions of people are often without good access to the types of proofing that will be required.

The end result is that you'll have business process driven by the national ID, and people will get cut off.

⬐ spacehome

This doesn't solve the primary issue which is that in order for me to verify my identity I have to give the other party sufficient information to spoof my identity. The solution is obvious: asymmetric cryptography, where I can prove I know a secret without revealing the secret.

⬐ joshuaheard

Can you elaborate?

⬐ spacehome

I'll try.

There are a lot of ways to flesh out the details of such a system. The essence of all of them, though, is that each person has a public key which is known to everyone and simultaneously serves as a unique identifier to that person and a private key that is known only to the individual. Additionally, either the public key is derivable from the private key or both keys are derivable simultaneously via some process, but importantly, the private key is not derivable from the public key. And, depending on the system, messages can be encrypted with the private key and only decrypted with the public key, or vice-versa, messages can be encrypted with the public key and decrypted with the private key. The name for this broad category of cryptographic systems that have these properties is called "asymmetric cryptography".

To give a specific example of how it could work, each person creates a public-private RSA keypair, and publishes the public key. If I want to apply for a credit line with my bank, my bank can read the publicly available public key and use it to encrypt a nonce (secret token) and send me the encrypted nonce. I decrypt it using my private key and send the original nonce back to my bank, proving that I am the person in control of the private key, without ever revealing what that key is. Thus, if a malicious employee at my bank wanted to impersonate me to some other company, he wouldn't be able to (which is a huge flaw with the current system of handing over secrets to prove identity).

To tie public-private keypairs to real humans, you'd go to the DMV and give the government all the proof of identification that is required to receive a driver's license along with your public key, and the government could then publish that you're really the person associated with your public key, and all this still without the government having the knowledge required to impersonate you.

⬐ joshuaheard

This is what I had in mind, but you explained it much better. Now, how do we get it implemented?!

⬐ spacehome

Probably something involving smart cards, each with a display so you can confirm on the card itself every time you sign something. I would also add another layer of signing, so that you have a master key that you keep locked up in a secure location at home (wherever you keep your Social Security card today), and use that key very infrequently to sign and endorse another key you keep in your wallet. If you lose your wallet, then it's a simple matter to take your master key out of storage and revoke the previous wallet key and sign a new one. If you lose your master key, it's a more complicated process of going down to the DMV and proving your identity again to create a new master key.

But it's not going to happen because the costs of fraud in the current system are less than the costs of rejigging the whole whole thing.

⬐ superuser2

Any system of shared secrets is doomed to fail. Inevitably one of the dozens of entities trusted with them will leak them.

Let citizens approve specific authentication requests via a secure channel to a government website or with government issue smart cards or something.

⬐ pmiller2

I don't see what that solves. In the short term, it would be better and more secure than using SSNs, but in the long run, you should assume hackers will breach any database it gets stored in. That means one should always assume that no identifier is truly "private."

⬐ forrestthewoods

Credit is mildly dumb, but honestly it doesn't bother me. It's a game. It's a weird game. Arguably an illogical game.

But you know what? It's not a difficult game to play. It's an arbitrary benchmark of responsibility. If you're loaning money to someone or entering a contract you'd want to do so with someone who is dependable and responsible. Someone you can trust to hold up their end of the bargain. If they can't successfully play the credit score game then that's a pretty clear warning flag.

I kinda view high school/college the same way. They're another dumb game. But everyone knows credit scores and degrees make a difference. So if someone can identify and successfully navigate the game that's a very good indicator. Not the only indicator. And certainly not the end all to be all. But a good, solid one.

#UnpopularOpinionBear

⬐ Carrok

> But everyone knows credit scores and degrees make a difference.

I agree with the rest of your comment, but how exactly do degrees make a difference?

⬐ forrestthewoods

Depends on the field. Matters much, much less in tech. Unless you switch tracks and suddenly need an MBA to progress. But degrees are still a big deal in many career tracks. And even though a degree isn't required in tech it is by far the simplest and most common way to start a career.

⬐ chrisan

> I agree with the rest of your comment, but how exactly do degrees make a difference?

The same line of logic from employers that credit = job-worthiness can be applied to degree = job-worthiness. Perhaps less so in the tech industry, but I have friends who are at the ceiling of where they work (non-tech) because they do not have degrees.

⬐ MichaelBurge

The bit about selling Orca steaks makes me wonder if you can get a pass from the EPA to raise endangered species for their meat, as long as you create more than you kill.

⬐ empressplay

I moved to another country for ten years and my credit report is now _empty_. I'm not saying if it was previously good or bad, but I'm moving back now and either way starting from a clean slate is sort-of cool (even if I have to start off with a $200 wal-mart credit card...)

⬐ Kinnard

Are the algorithms employed by theses agencies to produce these "scores" public?

⬐ awqrre

If you use http://creditkarma.com/ to check your credit report , it gives you quit a bit of information as to how the score is calculated.

⬐ snissn

I'm actually surprised about this.. a lot of those craigslist job posts that he's talking about are just referral marketing scams to send job applicants for a fake job to complete a credit check from an affiliate link.

⬐ CiPHPerCoder

I'm currently dealing with my own nightmare with the three credit bureaus. After a month of no response, I got an "updated" credit report where literally nothing was changed.

⬐ encoderer

Until ~2015 the databases holding your credit file at EQ and TU were so shoddy that you could easily remove "hard" inquiries on your credit report (those that other people see for 2 years, and which affect your fico score for 1 year). The "trick" was to sign up for several services that let you pull your own credit every day. Pulling your own credit, a "soft" inquiry, does not affect on your score. Their databases could hold only the last 100 or so inquiries, so you just pull your credit a few times every day and you overflow the field. They had a monthly batching process to consolidate these soft inquiries, so it did take a bit of persistence, but it's an alarming look at the tech underlying this critical piece of our credit economy.

⬐ whatok

Wow, this is incredible. How has it changed since 2015?

⬐ x0x0

yup, they figured this out and stopped it mid 2015 iirc.

The above process occasionally lead to split credit reports as well, which could be a nightmare to resolve.

⬐ artursapek

Was this technical detail made public? I'd be surprised to see them admit to something like that.

⬐ x0x0

Of course the CRAs didn't tell people about this, but it was very widely known amongst people trying to optimize their credit score, particularly for churning or MSing. Google eg bumpage or B* and you'll find lengthy discussions...

⬐ artursapek

Wow, that's amazing.