Why is Equifax still around.. we have no say or opt in system to allow them to use our personal data for their financial gain.
I didnt agree to this! Isn't there an Equifax competitor that lets you opt in and is all about security. If not one of their competitors needs to rebrand as such or such a competitor needs to enter the market and whoop their a#*!
When you get a mortgage, you have to agree to send the data to equifax -- you can't get a mortgage without it.
So the only way we'll fix this is by getting all of those companies to agree not to send data to equifax, but they like sending data there, because they get even better data in return.
Of course you're concerned. People that can't or won't manage to be responsible for themselves are always concerned that others don't agree with them. It threatens to hamper that carefree way of life.
OP is not saying that he doesn't want anyone performing credit checks. He's saying that he wants to be able to choose a company that values privacy. Currently, there's no option of choice for the consumer, and that's a problem.
Most people don't care enough, and only select on price. So the bank gets the cheapest option for nonvisible backends (like credit checks)
What's disingenuous is trying to pass off "modern life" as some sort of necessity and pretending like you couldn't exist without demanding use of other peoples' works.
A large part of the problem is that companies can pretend to use the information as an ID when actually using it to just get credit history. I wish we could simply pass a law saying that identity verification cannot use SSN, and that one must separately opt in to credit checks than to id verification.
If you need to pay using a credit card then it makes sense that you must get your credit checked.
But there are always alternative payment methods that don't involve credit (like pay by cash). If you truly do not want to consent to having a credit history, you can avoid it.
If you don't pay the bill, they use your deposit and terminate your service.
My current ISP didn't even ask for a deposit. I just visited one of their storefronts so they could check my ID to verify my name.
Just because someone isn’t giving you credit and never will doesn’t mean they won’t want your credit details. Nor that you will have leverage to refuse.
Yes, some companies are rotten, but some do provide just as simple ways to get service without a credit check.
> but none as simple as verfiying credit history
A few companies will tell you in advance that they're going to run a background check, but many will not. Then they'll come back very huffy and complain, "why couldn't we access your credit!"
Also for a fun game, the next time a representative from a company asks for consent to run a background check, tell them your credit is frozen and ask which company (Equifax, Experian, etc...) they're going to check with so you can unfreeze it. In my experience, 9 out of 10 times they won't know and there will be no way for them to find out in advance.
In the same way, even if you're consenting for a company to send data to partners, you don't always get to know who those partners are or who they'll be in the future. I try to pay attention to data consent forms now. Sometimes they do boil down to just "we're gonna share your info with... somebody. Possibly multiple of them."
I might be wrong, but I would bet that the person who you sit down with to sign your loan or your mortgage will not know who your data is going to be shared with, and they probably won't be able to look it up if you ask.
But hey, at least Geico can send me physical mail advertising on my birthday now, so I guess it's all worth it.
Until we decide we've had enough of this and pass a real law that holds CRAs liable for the data they collect and store, absolutely nothing will change. Equifax's competitors know that, with no such law on the books, they have enough money to withstand the very few lawsuits that could come their way as a result of a breach. They know the average person doesn't have the spare cash or time to pursue such a case.
Equifax should have been liquidated after demonstrating the degree of negligence they tolerated for years. They're still standing because we let them.
Correct. This is a problem caused by the market. Expecting market forces (a competitor with better offerings) to just fix it isn't productive.
I don't disagree that some goods are inelastic and still can have robust free markets (see bottled water) but the credit score market is not one of them.
Trust forms the basis of all financial transactions. Credit ratings companies increase trust, reducing the price of these transactions. Removing these companies would increase the price of loans/credit cards/etc.
(This ignores the fact that, for example, lenders in Australia mostly ignore credit ratings and instead focus on your earnings)
The problem is that companies are as good as their last quarter, so over decades and tens of quarters they had to do a lot of shady stuff to increase their earnings.