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> They said they couldn't override the software - which I don't believe at all.

This is why I'm worried by - no, I hate - the automation of bureaucracy, governmental and business alike. Software is giving bureaucrats the perfect escape hatch. "I'm sorry, but The System won't let me".

The System won't let a low-level clerk fix the mistake some algorithm made. You escalate to the manager, but The System won't let them do it either. If you're lucky, maybe they'll try to escalate to the main office on the other side of the country, someone there may or may not be able to fix the issue. If you're lucky. If you're not, the manager has a perfect, non-offensive way to refuse: "I'm sorry, The System won't let me".

Here on HN, we all know how The System works. A bunch of half-assed business logic, wrapped in a bloated webapp, developed by some outsourced team of code monkeys, who on their good day mostly care about playing with the newest JavaScript fad, inflicting yet another round of suffering on thousands of employees and millions of customers. One of those broken business rules blows a fuse, your debit card gets locked out, and there's nobody within 200 kilometers of you with the access rights to clear a flag. And no, the devs who maintain The System don't have them either; they're just monkeys in the outsourcing firm that was the best at underbidding on the tender.

(I'm totally not talking about my wife's bank, that managed to spontaneously block her card and on-line banking just before weekend, and took a lot of fighting to undo its own mistake.)

> Luckily my agent was able to call the new landlord, we all got on a call, my agent, my friend, me and the landlord.

That's why we need to have people in the loop. Empowered people. To fix the mistakes, file down the corner cases.

Automation of corporate bureaucracy is trying to fit everyone into well-defined and heavily optimized flows, whether it makes sense or not. If you fall off the assembly line, the gears will crush you.

Computer says no: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n_Ty_72Qds

can I tell you something crazy about that. We know that joke is from little Britain , because you tube gives us the video. But the joke was actually in a different show first, i think it was called 'people like us' and the scene was in a real estate agent

You can always override the system somewhere, but nobody gets fired for doing the System.

> Software is giving bureaucrats the perfect escape hatch. "I'm sorry, but The System won't let me".

In the parent story, its in everyone's interest that the person was able to sign the agreement. Saying "the system won't let me" to screw him over makes no sense. There will always be overrides or discretion involved.

If anything an automated system would help people from getting screwed over. If you check all the system's boxes and someone still doesn't want to rent to you, maybe he's being biased based on a protected class. Without automation, someone can just make something up or just keep you in limbo or sit on your application

>Software is giving bureaucrats the perfect escape hatch. "I'm sorry, but The System won't let me".

Kafka would be proud. Or horrified. One of the two.

(Caretaker cofounder.)

I've been rejected/failed/banned by an emotionless machine a handful of times, and I don't know that anything else has made me feel quite so hopeless. I like to think a similar knot in my stomach keeps me honest.

Thankfully, one of our fundamental incentives as a property management business is to get more quality tenants approved for more apartments. If there are high quality renters qualified to sign a lease and fill a vacancy, mistakenly rejecting them directly impacts a landlord's bottom line. So we're motivated beyond altruism to get this right, which is important.

Along these lines (and perhaps surprisingly, relative to the automation in the post), our income verification product is decidely not fully automated. Non-salaried income reporting can be extremely tricky, and we've run into a number of renters with reliable income on a monthly basis that doesn't fit neatly onto a bi-weekly paystub. In those circumstances, we work with them manually to sort out how we can best present it to landlords on an application.

This is why there are or are incoming (long time since I've looked at the details) rules in the EU about fully automated decision making.

It may not have covered this example, but it's a good reminder of the reasons why this kind of legislation exists.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo...

(edit - grammar)

The EU and UK GDPRs have these rules. In fact, they were in earlier data protection law as well.

Even if you don't understand or can't use (to your advantage) the rule on automated decision-making, you can still insist that data processing be "fair" - fairness is one of the fundamental rules of EU and UK data protection law, including in the current EU and UK GDPRs. Learn your rights!!

I have a similar story. I got married and my wife moved to my state and was in the middle of the process of getting a license when COVID hit. She had gotten a learner's permit to practice for the driving test, and it expired but got extended due to COVID. We decided it was finally time to sort out the mess.

However, to get that learner's permit required her to take a couple written tests. We were told she would have to retake those tests because the software had them down as expired. Then when she went to take the test, they told her she didn't need to because she had already taken them! Our second visit they finally sorted it out but we had to wait multiple hours while they got managers involved to assist us.

I had a similar DMV experience. My login for the online site wasn't working so I went to reset the password, but after entering my information it said I had no account. Ok I thought, I'll create a new account. Of course when I tried that, using the same information I tried to reset the password with, it failed saying that I already had an account.

There was no direct way to contact anyone on the website and the person I spoke to at the physical office told me to contact the state headquarters. After multiple calls and emails I finally got ahold of someone involved in the website... who completely blew me off.

Every year when my registration came due I'd give it a few more tries, hoping to avoid a trip to the office. Finally after almost a decade I got someone to actually fix my account. Even then they didn't admit that anything was wrong on their end, they tried to gaslight me and pretend it was working this whole time.

This was enraging and the only cost was some inconvenience. I'm terrified of this happening with a critical service.

serious Q. how in the world would any credit agency know what day you are paying the rent?

In the US, I don't believe any credit agency has insight into my personal bank accounts re size (I think?) or when things are paid to whom they are paid or the like (pretty sure about this). they know about my debts, but unless the landlord puts me into collection, I ca't imagine a reason for my rent appearing on the report (it's been a while since I looked at one, but dont remember seeing them)

Credit agencies can 100% know when you pay you rent as the receiver can send this information to them. Credit cards also say when you pay so they can keep track of when you're delinquent or late for payments.

I think the person you are replying to is surprised that a landlord would bother reporting that information to a credit agency. I have never heard of that, and after using some of the bigger name property management companies in my area as both a renter and landlord, it just isn't normal here.

Credit agencies - at least in the US - really don't know when you pay the rent, though, unless the landlord reports this. Same for payments: This is a big part of the reason you cannot simply live within your means [1] and have good credit later in life.

You won't.

Many companies - utilities, landlords, hospitals, and so on - simply won't report anything unless it is negative. The negatives are usually sending something to in-house collections, a collection agency, or filing a civil suit to get the money.

Loans, in general, will report. This includes credit cards. Some of the buy here/pay here places won't report, though, so you get no help on your credit.

[1] What I mean by "live within your means" is to simply do things like pay cash for a used car, rent an affordable place, and simply pay your bills on time.

OP here - Estate agent asked for 6 months bank statements, which I assume was requested by the referencing agency.

I don't think is common practise in the U.K, but I asked around and lots of people told me it is more common that the larger agencies ask for it, plus it was for an apartment in a very competitive development so I feel like it might have been a forcing function to reduce the amount of applicants but that is speculation on my part.

"Estate agent asked for 6 months bank statements, "

WTF.

That's a crazy practice. Paystub maybe, but bank statements? My gosh.

I've been looking for a new apartment in NYC and the place I applied for wanted 2 month's of paystubs and 2 month's of bank statements. Most agencies I've seen request this or more. It's insane but if you find a place you like things sell so quickly here that you have no choice but to play by their rules or leave the city.

Unrelated rant but the reason I've been looking is my current landlord has taken over 35 days to send me a renewal contract. Go figure that 10 minutes after texting him I'm going through the credit check for a new apartment he sends me the updated document.

NY places limits on landlords such as: cannot consider or even look at past evictions, cannot ask for more than a month deposit, and others. Also they completely left landlords out in the cold for rent for over a year and counting. NY is extremely tenant friendly and it can cost a lot if you get a bad tenant. Year(s) of unpaid rent, legal fees, and money for repairs.

Hey I don't make the rules - but if I don't play by them I lose a place I really wanted to live in. Sucks, but that's life.

I don't know where in the world you are - but the American solution to this problem are a series of organizations that constantly ingest a massive amount of financial data around what transactions you're executing and then sell it to the lender without your knowledge. I'd be happy to be the person actually handing over so much of my financial data instead of it being harvested without my consent.

I was renting about 5 years ago and even back then the agency asked me for about 6-12months of bank statements checking the payment dates and probably checking if I could afford it

Why not ask the bank to confirm that you make enough, without revealing how much you make and your whole spending history?

In competitive rental markets, there will always be another tenant who will not be "difficult" in the eyes of the agent who will snatch the place up from you if you start going off the beaten path.

Before I got my place there were 3 other apartments in the same complex I verbally agreed to and then agent called back to say it had been taken. Not sure if you've rented in likes of London, NY or SF before but the competition can be intense.

Look it sucks that I had to do that, in an ideal world we could have done what you said, but I valued getting the place over my reservations of handing over bank statements.

So often this is the case. Someone asks something unreasonable, and pushing back gets you marked as difficult. It acts as a filter, even if done unintentionally

Because nobody wants to rent to a difficult tenant.

I was asked for 12 months' worth of statements for a place I wanted to rent in Islington. I got them printed out at the bank, and then spent an entire day with a Sharpie and a ruler and redacted every payee and amount in each of those statements. The approved my rental contract without a peep.

A potential employer once also wanted statements - I think 6 months' worth, and I did the same. HR pushed back but legal backed them down rather quickly. I think these people ask because most just comply without question.

What information did you effectively leave that they theoretically wanted to see? Simply activity on the account, or did you leave incoming pay unredacted?

I left dates. They never told me what they wanted to see, other than "bank statements".

I wonder if they have access to your balances via Plaid, which seems to be popping up all over the dang place. I should look more closely at their terms of service.

There's a lot of privilege involved in being able to navigate these kinds of social overrides, so the idea that it's good that you can get around stupid rules like this by talking to a person is.. only really true for some people.

What's wrong here isn't the idea that "the rules" could be applied evenly to everyone (that's actually a good thing). It's this kind of incredibly narrow requirement on housing where landlords get to dig deep into your financials to the point of knowing when/how you paid for things.

That's gross, and should not be allowed. It's almost certainly a part of many people's vicious cycles into poverty. It's also, as far as I know, a really recent development and part of the general trend towards more and more invasive surveillance in daily life.

All my online dashboards I deal with for various things are buggy and inflexible. Whatever the problem is though, you can usually phone a human who can fix it. If you get rid of humans, it’s just creating a nightmare

We already know how this happens when Google cancels your account, without any warning.

Want a sneak peek of the nightmare? Plenty of companies are now introducing conversational bots on their phone lines, desperately trying to prevent you from getting in touch with a human. And unlike traditional voice menus, pressing 0 or mashing the keypad doesn't work on them.

I recently wasted a good 10 minutes trying to reach a flesh-and-blood consultant of a phone company, and I actually wanted to buy stuff from them. I just needed a human to make sure it's on the record I'm requesting a non-default service (FTTH Internet with external ONT, so that I could swap a proper router in place of the piece of garbage they normally provide).

Their fancy bot actually understood what I wanted when I repeatedly said "I want to be connected with a consultant" - it kept replying, "I understand you want to talk to a consultant; before we do that, can you tell me [insert some random idiotic question]?". I almost blew a fuse there. I only persisted because for technical reasons, I couldn't go with other providers.

This kind of behavior should be unacceptable by companies whose services are essential, which definitely includes ISPs these days. If it's some company I can do without I'm really quick to drop them when I run into this sort of thing, even if it means going without something I want. I just hate giving money to sleezy companies.

I had the experience other way around. I did my graduate degree developing solvers and algorithms to analyze mechanical and civil structures. Heck, I even did TA for one of these grad level courses. However, when it was time to find a job, software screening cleared me but it was impossible to find a job because I could not convince the HR and hiring manager that I have the necessary experience using softwares that run such algorithms to design structures. I would happily adapt a software system that has less bias (or atleast bias normalized from different viewpoints and quantified) that having to deal with human bias that is not easily identifiable or quantifiable. Also such human bias is particularly harsh against poor and marginalized groups.

The problem isn’t with automated management but with economic inequality. Automating the job of property management and leasing makes perfect sense, having a system where people can be unfairly evicted and wind up homeless and jobless does not. Fortunately we can fix the real problem with some relatively simple policy changes.

Why did you pay him on willy nilly days instead of just setting up a recurring standing order and being done with it?

Why does this matter if all parties involved were satisfied with the arrangement?

It's still a risk, the new landlord may not want an unstable source of income even if the previous one did.

Because for certain professions income is reliable but not set to a 14 day pay cycle.

Could be that OP is a freelance author and is paid depending on when stories are picked up, or is contracting for multiple employers and has an irregular payment schedule depending on their invoicing.

Not everyone conforms to the same set of employment/fiscal assumptions we (here meaning "educated white collar US tech workers") may have.

So OP is illiquid? Then categorising OP as a risk is perfectly correct.

Nope not illiquid (quite the jump made there on your behalf given the available information).

I get paid “on or around the 20th” every month. In some cases it’s earlier (if the 20th falls on a weekend I’ll be paid the Thursday before that weekend), and on those occasions I paid the rent before the 20th.

I like to manually pay bills where I can as I will then write them off in a ledger I keep, especially for rent as I tend to balance everything when I get paid.

Also, and very important point here, the previous landlord, my friend, did not care at all when I paid rent as long as it was before the end of the month.

Also by using Faster Payments bank to bank transfer my friend got the money same day rather than +/-3 days like direct debit. Again he didn’t care, but it was a nice benefit, right?

If your getting paid after the 20th makes you unable to pay on the 20th then you are illiquid. This may or may not be a big deal but it is strictly worse than the alternative.

For instance, what happens if you lose your income for whatever reason? Your paying irregularly might as well be proof that you will immediately be unable to pay rent in that case. Now, this may not in fact be true (perhaps you have lots of liquid assets but want the maximum amount of money invested at all times, and that was fine because your landlord didn't mind), but you can see why this is a red flag.

Sorry, but nope you are wrong again, I was never paid after the 20th.

Payment was always before or on the 20th, in 3 years not a single rental was after the 20th. I am sorry I am not fitting your curve neatly.

They docked you because you sometimes paid rent early?

Well to them it wasn't so much early as it was inconsistent.

I mentioned somewhere else in this thread bank-to-bank transfer like the ones I was making are through the Faster Payments network which means they reconcile same-day - I don't know if their software was checking for pay on just the 20th, or if it was docking me because the pay was irregular, but there was some naive logic in there somewhere.

I have my rent set up with automatic payment, and the date the payment actually goes through varies +/- five business days. My bank even warned be to set it to go through a week early.

Further, companies already exist [https://carpe.io/] that mine your online presence to help calculate your risk score.

Humanity is the sickness. Only through software and bureaucracy can humans cure their ailment and achieve the proper goals. It's 2021, get with the times.

Humanity is fine but we’ve tolerated cancers that have gained control of the brain and are running the show.

I'm perfectly okay with AI and algorithms being used as red flaggers to help a human find out what needs immediate attention or even potential concerns. I'm 100% against algorithms and AI making the actual decisions.

I was talking about MBAs, but find your idea to be logical and likely. AI/human hybrids where humans make decisions based on AI processed information.

I am far more concerned about software automating what used to be left to human judgement. AI will judge us just the same, just faster and with no way to appeal to common sense.

I'm pretty sure GP was being sarcastic.

Mildly

I'm being cheeky, but at the same time, it's a serious issue. AI used in these fashions are just going to be bureaucracy on steroids, however, as you mention, less chances for appeals.

And on an extremely serious note, I am utterly terrified how many people treat, "Well the AI/algorithm says xyz, it must be true. Got to believe the math/data." I'm not kidding, that's my fear. People blindly follow the almighty algorithms. It's just another form of religion and worship. And even more seriousness, atheists are fantastic at rationalizing their blind dogmatic worship over algorithms.

/s, surely?

Does /s mean cheeky? I seriously have no clue what /s means.

It means sarcasm

Can't really blame software for housing policy. That's a societal issue.

But the landlord (the societal arbiter) agreed in this case - the software denied me. Very much an issue of the software in this case.

The issue is that policy alone is insufficient. Humans can look past the policy's rigidity when necessary; software can't.

More than that - policy is designed to be interpreted by humans, to be bent or overriden when needed. There are processes in place for that - from a simple handshake deal, through a written contract amendment, to the court system. When software is tasked with enforcing policies, there is no bending, no overriding, no special cases. In this way, software breaks the policies.