2mo ago

Equifax wiped out his credit score — and a little-known policy means he can't get it back

www.cbc.ca /news/gopublic/equifax-credit-score-vanished-1.7542059

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.

Canada @lemmy.ca

RandAlThor @lemmy.ca

2mo ago

Equifax wiped out his credit score — and a little-known policy means he can't get it back

www.cbc.ca /news/gopublic/equifax-credit-score-vanished-1.7542059

17 comments

It is kinda funny how often people will give shit to China for it's social credit score but we're not too fucking far off from it here in the west. When you can't even get housing because of a credit score... it's kind of a fuckin' problem.
- 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."
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.
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!
- Always remembers me of this 2018 onion article
  
  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.)
I think it is hilarious that people aren't more scared of where this path inveitably leads and has already lead, I passed the point of being scared long ago and now all I have left is to laugh.
Remember when a few democratic reps wanted to pass laws for better oversight on credit bureaus and got shot down by both parties? Pepperidge Farms remembers: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4120
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.
Keeping people in perennial debt: Those who won't work for the carrot get the stick.
How can this post created in the 'Canada' community be cross posted into the 'Canada' community? Somehow the same post got 'created' twice in the same community.
- 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.
  
  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?
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.

17 comments