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Comment by fred_is_fred | Hacker News Reader

I don’t recall ever seeing a salary in my credit report. Certainly when applying for credit cards you are asked but generally they have you include all sources of income including bonus, passive income, and alimony.

There are data sources for this info but I don’t think it’s technically a credit report.

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Equifax’s The Work Number buys salary data from employers and they use it for income verification when applying for loans and rentals. You’d be surprised how much data is out there; and it was all sold by entities you ‘trust’. One example being the DMV

If you lease a car these days you will be swamped with offers from banks and lease-end "providers" as your end date approaches. I got really mad with the dealer until they told me it was the DMV that was selling that information.

Regarding The Work Number: you have the right to see your own report and it's worthwhile to do so. And it's scary. A lot of the information is usually incomplete and/or full of holes. I can't believe anyone would base a decision on this data.

as an example, i have received usmail junkmail addressed to my address, but with the name of my first cousin's husband's name, which makes no sense unless some incompetent data brokers are just merging their datasets in all sorts of random ways and seeing what sticks.

i dream of phone calls costing the entity placing the call some significant-at-scale price, perhaps a dime, and bulk rate physical junkmail needing full postage.

If I remember correctly, ADP and the other big payroll processors sell your income data, as do many of the finance apps that get access to your bank account data. They also have your rent and mortgage payments typically. It's not always a line item in your official credit report, but the data leaks (and is sold) everywhere. Probably the more correct phrasing would be "in your financial target data profile as sold by [credit agencies, et al]"?

Experian does collect and sell income data about people, in fact i think they pay companies directly for this information. This is helpful for salary negotiations. It’s not in a normal credit report though, true.

Right - there are plenty of data sources here but it's not a credit report.

Loan applications. Credit cards. They all ask for your income. I always put 1,000,000. Never been denied a loan.

Mortgage loans and car loans in America also ask for your W-2 or proof of that said income. Can't prove it, they won't let you use your claimed income as basis for loan approvals.

I've even had to prove my salary when applying for apartments. No loan involved. The first time that happened I didn't have a w-2 yet, so they called my employer to check.

I never had to supply a W-2 for a vehicle loan. Just my SSN. I almost always get unsecured loans too. They just dump money into your bank account and say "please buy a car with this" and you keep the title. For a mortgage you do have to validate your income. The work around is to just buy your house in cash, I guess (sigh). So I guess mortgage loans leave you open there, but those happen less frequently and may not be good map of income level on a shorter period.

Once in a while they want to see a bank statement or two showing actually paycheck deposits, but I only ever saw that on a mortgage. Once for the car loan they asked to see a balance or two via bank statement. So I showed them a bank account sitting around the $$ for the vehicle loan.

I tend to just avoid loans if at all possible now though.

> They just dump money into your bank account and say "please buy a car with this" and you keep the title.

where is this?

you don't have or keep the title until the bank sees you paid off the loan, in every instance i've seen.

An unsecured loan just a straight cash loan. In my experience the interest rates are usually a fair bit higher than a vehicle loan, and I would assume the maximum amount is generally quite a bit lower.

In my experience it really depends. You are still contractually and legally obligated to purchase a vehicle in many of these setups, they just don't follow up or enforce it directly in most cases. Loan rates are nothing like unsecured personal loan rates. Probably higher than best auto loan rates. With rates being what they are it may not make as much sense to use an unsecured loan at this point, but when rates are low the cost was negligible and the convenience worth it.

Ahhh, like if you were to put your new VW on your Visa card entirely.

That might work: you'd have bought the car, from the point of view of VW and your DMV, so the DMV sends you the title, not Visa.

In Maryland I received my car's title, but it just shows the lien holder's information on it. I've never bought a car in any other state so my information is limited.

Is this different from what you mean?

i'm pretty sure that in Arizona, and i think in California, they DMV sends the title updated to show the original holder (like BMW Financial Services, Subaru Financial Services, or whatever) has been payed completely, and the person is then shown as the title holder.

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