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Comment by metaphor | Hacker News Reader

What AT&T service compels consumer SSN disclosure to begin with?

If you take out credit, or don't want to pay security deposit, they ask for it

Thanks for the clarification.

I think it's any contract with a carrier. They want the ability to go after you and hurt your credit if you refuse to pay, is my guess. It's disgusting.

How is it disgusting for a lender to be able to look up someone's credit history and determine if they are an appropriate credit risk for them?

The alternative is everyone gets (or does not get at all) credit on the same terms without regards to personal behavior or risk profiles, which is a valid option, but I would still think "disgusting" is a strong word to describe the prior scenario.

You're asking this question in the following context: getting a cell mobile provider contract requires a social security number. Social security number is used to pin a score on someone's credit worthiness. Mobile provider gets hacked, exposing clients to bad actors using social security number and associated data to open credit lines fraudulently and hurting users' credit worthiness scores.

The disgusting part is the whole reason the providers demanded SS # is to defend their own interests to threaten clients with collection agencies and credit score dips. The neglect of these same now cause clients to risk getting credit score dips through no fault of their own.

Which part of this sits well with you?

The only disgusting part is the one where vendors get to claim someone owes them without adequate proof and makes it a random person’s obligation to prove they do not owe the vendor rather than a vendor having to prove they did their due diligence in confirming someone’s identity.

> The disgusting part is the whole reason the providers demanded SS # is to defend their own interests to threaten clients with collection agencies and credit score dips. The neglect of these same now cause clients to risk getting credit score dips through no fault of their own.

I do not expect un-hackable systems and organizations to exist, so I would not find this “disgusting”, without knowing how the leak happened. It might be disgusting if there was a complete disregard for handling of the data, which might be true in this case, but I was responding to your comment as is there very idea that a mobile carrier can lend to a customer was disgusting.

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