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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

What's the problem with that? We have cameras, passwords, tokens, witnesses. Tell credit issuers to demand photo of person holding up ID and a thumbs up instead of just typing in a social security number. If that still results in too much fraud, then the lender is incentivized to do more research and verify in person that the person is who they say they are.

Right now, in the interest of increasing commerce, we're forcing everyone in society to bear the burden of this specific fraud and the benefits go to the lenders. If person A is being defrauded by person B pretending to be person C, then person C has no reason to be involved unless they aided person B.

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So, every consumer needs a computer with a web camera that can actually focus on their ID (not all do), plus we have to share pictures of ourselves holding our ID with anyone who asks for it. And then it will inevitably leak.

This is placing the burden on consumers in a different way.

I don’t see why anyone is entitled to credit via a couple form fields on a website. The burden is placed on the lender and the borrower. If the lender wants to come up with their own way that doesn’t need ID and a camera, they can.

The burden is lifted from the rest of us who somehow got tasked with making sure lenders aren’t making errors with the risk of losing hours of our lives fixing someone else’s problem.

It’s ridiculous that after your child is born, you’re supposed to spend your time to place a credit freeze at the 3 credit bureaus. Transfer the liability of identity fraud to the lenders, and they will figure out the solutions in no time.

Not the consumer as I read it but the credit issuer would have to collect this evidence, so they would have the burden. Also this would help build a reputation that is auditable of the credit issuers.

This feels like an idea that would benefit consumers and be a business opportunity targeted at creditors if we could only convince them this is their responsibility.

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