Equifax wiped out his credit score — and a little-known policy means he can't get it back
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Equifax refused to restore his credit score or explain why it dropped to zero, until Go Public started asking questions.
Only then did the company point to its little-known policy: If a credit file sits inactive, the consumer may be labelled “unscoreable” and their score reset to zero. Tregear says the last time he checked, before it disappeared, his score was around a more respectable 700.
Go Public has since found a major flaw in consumer protection rules — that there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.
Consumer advocate Geoff White says that gives credit bureaus too much power, with no transparency.
Keeping people in perennial debt: Those who won’t work for the carrot get the stick.
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Don’t forget the even more nebulous and secretive insurance scores that are even tied in to data brokers!
On the other hand, the Chinese “social credit” is mostly western fabulation. And what little implementation of that actually does exists is actually mostly used to track and punish corporations and governmental bodies… So there’s that.
Ah, so eastern social credit is the public(ish) policing private business. And that is very bad – by which of course I mean it’s targeting the people who most manipulate western public opinion.
But our western financial credit is private business policing the general public. “This is normal.”
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The “crosspost” label is more of a flag that there is another post with the same URL somewhere. If I posted the same article in a community multiple times, it would have multiple “crosspost” labels for that community. I agree that this could be done in a better way
I assume there was a bug or loading issue where the user posted this post twice. Maybe their app thought it didn’t go through the first time and tried posting it again.
Since there is discussion on both posts, I might leave them both?
I think I might have an explanation. Lemmy seems to have an issue with CBC articles for some reason. When I post them, it doesn’t show that it’s “posted” but “hangs” in the posting page. So I clicked it to submit again. It doesn’t happen with any other site. Just CBC.
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Equifax refused to restore his credit score or explain why it dropped to zero, until Go Public started asking questions.
Only then did the company point to its little-known policy: If a credit file sits inactive, the consumer may be labelled “unscoreable” and their score reset to zero. Tregear says the last time he checked, before it disappeared, his score was around a more respectable 700.
Go Public has since found a major flaw in consumer protection rules — that there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.
Consumer advocate Geoff White says that gives credit bureaus too much power, with no transparency.
This happened to me too. I’m actually relieved because my credit score was in the shitter. Now I’m back to a clean slate.
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This happened to me too. I’m actually relieved because my credit score was in the shitter. Now I’m back to a clean slate.
How did you get it back?
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The “crosspost” label is more of a flag that there is another post with the same URL somewhere. If I posted the same article in a community multiple times, it would have multiple “crosspost” labels for that community. I agree that this could be done in a better way
I assume there was a bug or loading issue where the user posted this post twice. Maybe their app thought it didn’t go through the first time and tried posting it again.
Since there is discussion on both posts, I might leave them both?
The discussion in both could get confusing. Someone may look in the wrong post for a follow-up. Any way the two posts could get combined, since they are both by the same author? Or maybe warn the posters in one tat it is going to be deleted, and refer them to the second post?
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How did you get it back?
By doing the same thing the person in the article did: not using my credit. I’m also currently “unscoreable”. As far as I’m concerned, no credit score is better than a bad one, so I’ll take it.
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Except ours is based on our ability to repay debt. Which is fucked.
Not saying China’s is any better, but at least you’re rated on your actions and words. Not some capitalist view of a person’s worth.
Both are fucked.
Anyway, credit scores should be abolished.
Except ours is based on our ability to repay debt. Which is fucked.
How so? It seems to be exactly what lenders want to know before lending. Are you judging a system by its exceptions?
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Except ours is based on our ability to repay debt. Which is fucked.
How so? It seems to be exactly what lenders want to know before lending. Are you judging a system by its exceptions?
It’s moreso a rating of how much potential cash they can extract from you over a lifetime in the form of interest.
That’s why, if you always pay off your debt balance before interest accrues, it actually lowers your score.
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Equifax refused to restore his credit score or explain why it dropped to zero, until Go Public started asking questions.
Only then did the company point to its little-known policy: If a credit file sits inactive, the consumer may be labelled “unscoreable” and their score reset to zero. Tregear says the last time he checked, before it disappeared, his score was around a more respectable 700.
Go Public has since found a major flaw in consumer protection rules — that there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.
Consumer advocate Geoff White says that gives credit bureaus too much power, with no transparency.
there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.
Gee whiz, I’m sure these companies that carry so much responsibility will take that responsibility with pride and do their absolute best on giving honest and accurate data, and protect that data in the best way possible right? Like for example, they wouldn’t use some ex music teacher to become CTO which would lead to the biggest loss of US customer data (including social security numbers), ever, right?
RIGHT?
Fuck equifax, literally everybody working at that company should be jailed.
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Except ours is based on our ability to repay debt. Which is fucked.
Not saying China’s is any better, but at least you’re rated on your actions and words. Not some capitalist view of a person’s worth.
Both are fucked.
Anyway, credit scores should be abolished.
That’s an interesting concept but standards are different, so what does a social score mean anyway? For example, I value high eq/empathy above all. Lacking that but being a billionaire won’t increase my score toward you even though you might be rated high because you own a house, car, business etc.
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Equifax refused to restore his credit score or explain why it dropped to zero, until Go Public started asking questions.
Only then did the company point to its little-known policy: If a credit file sits inactive, the consumer may be labelled “unscoreable” and their score reset to zero. Tregear says the last time he checked, before it disappeared, his score was around a more respectable 700.
Go Public has since found a major flaw in consumer protection rules — that there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.
Consumer advocate Geoff White says that gives credit bureaus too much power, with no transparency.
I’m in the US but had a similar thing happen to me when I was first getting credit and had no history. I figured it would be a safe bet to apply for a card with my bank at the time, and they denied me citing my credit score: 0. At the time I just laughed and applied for another card elsewhere, who did actually accept me. After a few months I checked and saw I was assigned a real score somewhere in the low 700s.
I’d understand dropping a score after 10 years without credit, but the 2 in this case is very low.
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Except ours is based on our ability to repay debt. Which is fucked.
How so? It seems to be exactly what lenders want to know before lending. Are you judging a system by its exceptions?
You know what’s funny? Credit scores are a fairly new thing. If you wanted to rent an apartment, all you needed were good references. You couldn’t be denied based off some obscure score that a couple of companies have a monopoly over and can wreck your whole life if THEY mess up with no chance of recovering.
In a world where everything works on debt now, these companies have too much power over people.
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That’s an interesting concept but standards are different, so what does a social score mean anyway? For example, I value high eq/empathy above all. Lacking that but being a billionaire won’t increase my score toward you even though you might be rated high because you own a house, car, business etc.
Well in case of China, it’s how good they view you as a citizen. And that’s based on their own evaluation templates. And it’s probably based on how early you get to your job and how well you perform for glorious China.
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Equifax refused to restore his credit score or explain why it dropped to zero, until Go Public started asking questions.
Only then did the company point to its little-known policy: If a credit file sits inactive, the consumer may be labelled “unscoreable” and their score reset to zero. Tregear says the last time he checked, before it disappeared, his score was around a more respectable 700.
Go Public has since found a major flaw in consumer protection rules — that there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.
Consumer advocate Geoff White says that gives credit bureaus too much power, with no transparency.
I love how the “little known policy” is that they can do whatever the fuck they want because there are no regulations on credit scores. So great!
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I love how the “little known policy” is that they can do whatever the fuck they want because there are no regulations on credit scores. So great!
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Its provisions dictate that the president can sidestep any checks and balances on his power once he has abused his authority so many times that no one can keep track anymore.” Trump added that while his opponents may try to challenge his executive order in court, the loophole also states that by then he will have achieved his immediate political aims.
This must have been based on what he was doing in his first term, but damn. That’s way too on -the-nose. It’s like the current administration took notes from a piece that was supposed to be too absurd to take seriously. Probably not the first time with the Onion though. (And there was also the escalator thing with the Simpsons.)
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Well in case of China, it’s how good they view you as a citizen. And that’s based on their own evaluation templates. And it’s probably based on how early you get to your job and how well you perform for glorious China.
Isn’t this social credit thing mostly a hoax? They said they would do it but I’ve never met a Chinese person that confirmed they had this up and running
Edit: yeah mostly not a thing, Wiki got receipts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
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Except ours is based on our ability to repay debt. Which is fucked.
Not saying China’s is any better, but at least you’re rated on your actions and words. Not some capitalist view of a person’s worth.
Both are fucked.
Anyway, credit scores should be abolished.
TL;DR: how could you ever trust anyone to define a social credit score based on actions/words? And how can you offer debt without having something like a (better implemented) credit score?
I think I understand where you are coming from, assigning people a “worth” based on something financial is messed up. Ideally there would be some way to instead reward people for good things like being polite to people, and not littering. And possibly to penalize people for engaging in bad behaviour.
But even if I trusted the current government to implement this with the right goals, I would never trust future governments not to abuse this system. I don’t think I’d really trust any sort of group to do this right. I’m already disappointed enough with our current democracy (in Canada) for not getting rid of first-pass-the-post, and I’m skeptical that much will change with interprovincial trade barriers (why not sooner?).
But the idea of a better implemented credit score to track only severe abuse of debt doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to me. Obviously the current system is messed up and has major problems, but I feel like it could plausibly be fixed and done in a reasonable way. I think debt to buy a house (and maybe sometimes a car) is generally a good option to have. And I don’t know how you could offer this without tracking people who don’t pay. (Though maybe I’m wrong, maybe just going based off of income history is enough.)
But yes, the current system is ridiculous. People should be rewarded for never needing debt, not disqualified from getting future debt without notice. And it should be much easier to track and fix problems on our credit score. And things like cell phone bills don’t seem worth being affiliated with credit bureaus. I think most people would be better suited to prepaid plans if they were options. And I feel like financing phones is a really bad thing, people don’t realize how expensive they are. I’d rather if all my utility bills just collected some deposit instead of potentially being able to ruin my credit if a bill gets lost in the mail after I moved out. (But this could be too expensive for a lot of people, so again the credit score seems to have a purpose).
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Equifax refused to restore his credit score or explain why it dropped to zero, until Go Public started asking questions.
Only then did the company point to its little-known policy: If a credit file sits inactive, the consumer may be labelled “unscoreable” and their score reset to zero. Tregear says the last time he checked, before it disappeared, his score was around a more respectable 700.
Go Public has since found a major flaw in consumer protection rules — that there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.
Consumer advocate Geoff White says that gives credit bureaus too much power, with no transparency.
We’re so powerless in situations such as this. In the USA, I made a bank transfer to my landlord (around a decade ago) that never hit his account. Every day for about five days, I called my bank to get help. Each person said they’d released the funds for transfer. Each day, nothing changed.
On or around the fifth day, someone finally told me that OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) had seized the funds. The best I can guess is that this was due to my landlord having an Arabic-sounding name (you know, cause “terrorism”).
I went on the OFAC website and downloaded a form to contest the issue and documented everything. The letter I received in response said they had no record of the case number that I submitted. I realized, in that moment, that I would have to invest far more time, energy, and emotional hit points than I was willing to spend for $1500. I changed how I paid rent and got money orders that I then manually deposited in the landlord’s account at a local bank branch for the rest of the time I was there. I didn’t pursue the case. I wrote it off as a loss.
This is when it really, truly hit me (though I’d known viscerally for years) that I could not stand up to the government. I’m not advocating not fighting back. I’m advocating picking your battles. I felt very small and meek when this happened. I only gave up because I value money less than I value privacy or speech or time (I’m privileged to be able to say this, I know). In terms of fighting bureaucracy, we’re completely alone and have to be extremely dedicated or basically cornered, as this guy is, to make it worth it to fight back. And even then, it’s highly likely that, like this guy, you won’t be able to get justice.
