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'And 5 percent had errors that could be devastating, potentially denying lines of credit to them and making things like auto insurance prohibitively expensive.
by MichaelBurge 10y ago
'And 5 percent had errors that could be devastating, potentially denying lines of credit to them and making things like auto insurance prohibitively expensive. “To have that error level, it’s akin to 5 percent of automobiles spontaneously accelerating and having an accident, or 5 percent of planes falling from the sky,” Wu says. “We wouldn’t accept that error rate in other areas.”'
This is a dishonest statement. Having your insurance be slightly higher isn't nearly as serious as having your plane fall out of the sky. And if only 5% of software had bugs, we'd call it one of mankind's greatest triumphs.
The only thing in this article that concerns me is this statement:
"Those two states denied his application after he failed a credit check[...]"
The government shouldn't be allowed to depend on private companies to approve or reject you in this manner, because then a company like Experian is - in a small way - deciding the law. And Experian in particular is a foreign corporation(headquartered in Ireland), so it's doubly-problematic.
- waterphone 10y agoMultiple government systems rely on Experian for identity verification. If you don't have credit, you don't exist in the system according to the government. I've run into this personally with healthcare.gov and state medicaid applications, as well as commercial uses like Amazon Payments.
- xanderstrike 10y agoSame. I complained about the rates I was given by my auto insurance company and they said it was because I had no credit. I told them I could easily pay 12 months up front, didn't matter. I told them I could prove my income was more than enough, didn't matter. They told me I should get a credit card. In order to get a service I'm required to have by the government, I had to have my name in a system run by private, for profit companies.
- kmonsen 10y agoYou don't actually need car insurance (I know, this mostly a technicality): http://www.dmv.org/insurance/alternatives-to-auto-insurance.php http://www.dmv.org/insurance/alternatives-to-auto-insurance....
- xenadu02 10y agoWelcome to America! I hate it too but I got a student credit card in college and never let it go late. That has paid off many times over the years.