15 ms·

It's pretty terrifying how much information CreditKarma (TU- and Equifax-backed,) Mint and such have, and what that turns into when it's shared and combined.

superquest 9y ago
True. Recently I logged into Mint for the first time in a few years, and was quite disturbed to realize they had been importing every debit or credit card transaction, and every student loan payment I made. They know my financial health better than my bank does ...
- trendia 9y ago
  This is why I don't trust cloud services. I track my budget using PearBudget [0], an Excel (or LibreOffice) spreadsheet. [0] https://pearbudget.com/ https://pearbudget.com/
  - fuckemem 9y ago
    It says 4.95 a month so I am guess this is some kind of SaaS?
    - trendia 9y ago
      They have two versions: an Excel doc and a cloud service. I have no idea what the cloud service is liek because the Excel doc is free.
  - greenleafjacob 9y ago
    I have been looking to use GNUCash myself as a replacement for YNAB. Part of my general drive to text based scriptable systems over GUI.
    - aidenn0 9y ago
      GNUCash is scriptiable (in fact IIRC much of the out-of-the-box functionality is written in guile), but http://ledger-cli.org/ http://ledger-cli.org/ is much more of a text-based system than GNUCash.
  - killbrad 9y ago
    Doesn't really explain why you don't trust third parties. If you opted in......?
- killbrad 9y ago
  What's surprising to me is how many people are surprised by this. You gave them the credentials to all of your accounts, and then are shocked that they used them? What's more incredible is that you haven't changed the credentials for any of your critical accounts in that time.
  - superquest 9y ago
    I simply forgot that I did it. I gave them my credentials half a decade ago when I didn't know what I was doing ...
- caseysoftware 9y ago
  Since they store the actual passwords and lose the connection as soon as you change them, I'm shocked that you went years without changing those passwords..
  - kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
    At least it speaks highly of Mint's security practices. Their DB hasn't been stolen yet.
    - patrick_haply 9y ago
      Serious question: how do we know for certain that their DB hasn't been stolen yet?
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  Why are you disturbed ? The whole point of Mint is to track your spending so that you have a unified dashboard of your money ? If it didn't import all of those things you wouldn't have much use of it. Also you can remove accounts from it if you don't want it to track.
- xeromal 9y ago
  I'm amazed considering mine tends to disconnect nearly daily.
celim307 9y ago
I have first hand experience in the datamodeling/credit report collation the biggest online lenders do. We know a lot.
pretamanger 9y ago
Concentrating all my credit and financial information into one company does concern me. However, I do want some insight into and options for my finances and financial health, and I know I don't have all the information to do that. I used YNAB for a bit, and I found it pretty stressful to do all the bookkeeping. I went back to my heuristic budgeting. I don't need to track every penny. CreditKarma is really helpful for monitoring. I've gotten some good card recommendations from them and my credit score has gone up 60 points with little effort. I did my taxes through them this year (more data for them!), but I was disappointed when my state return was incorrect and I got less money back. Given that my financials are getting more complicated, I'll likely be using an accountant/attorney this year. Most people, including myself, seem willing to give up their privacy and confidentiality in exchange for convenience. I try to play it as a zero-sum game. I've deleted all my social media accounts, because having that info plus my financials floating around seems like a bad idea. In regard to my financial data, I'll probably freak out in a few years and move all that to a professional to handle. This whole "social" experiment with tech is, in my eyes, a frightening failure. Given how slipshod the security and data handling is at most companies (including my workplace), it's only a matter of time until there are millions of digital doppelgangers running around committing fraud.

superquest 9y ago

True. Recently I logged into Mint for the first time in a few years, and was quite disturbed to realize they had been importing every debit or credit card transaction, and every student loan payment I made. They know my financial health better than my bank does ...

trendia 9y ago
This is why I don't trust cloud services. I track my budget using PearBudget [0], an Excel (or LibreOffice) spreadsheet. [0] https://pearbudget.com/ https://pearbudget.com/
- fuckemem 9y ago
  It says 4.95 a month so I am guess this is some kind of SaaS?
  - trendia 9y ago
    They have two versions: an Excel doc and a cloud service. I have no idea what the cloud service is liek because the Excel doc is free.
- greenleafjacob 9y ago
  I have been looking to use GNUCash myself as a replacement for YNAB. Part of my general drive to text based scriptable systems over GUI.
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    GNUCash is scriptiable (in fact IIRC much of the out-of-the-box functionality is written in guile), but http://ledger-cli.org/ http://ledger-cli.org/ is much more of a text-based system than GNUCash.
- killbrad 9y ago
  Doesn't really explain why you don't trust third parties. If you opted in......?
killbrad 9y ago
What's surprising to me is how many people are surprised by this. You gave them the credentials to all of your accounts, and then are shocked that they used them? What's more incredible is that you haven't changed the credentials for any of your critical accounts in that time.
- superquest 9y ago
  I simply forgot that I did it. I gave them my credentials half a decade ago when I didn't know what I was doing ...
caseysoftware 9y ago
Since they store the actual passwords and lose the connection as soon as you change them, I'm shocked that you went years without changing those passwords..
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  At least it speaks highly of Mint's security practices. Their DB hasn't been stolen yet.
  - patrick_haply 9y ago
    Serious question: how do we know for certain that their DB hasn't been stolen yet?
zitterbewegung 9y ago
Why are you disturbed ? The whole point of Mint is to track your spending so that you have a unified dashboard of your money ? If it didn't import all of those things you wouldn't have much use of it. Also you can remove accounts from it if you don't want it to track.
xeromal 9y ago
I'm amazed considering mine tends to disconnect nearly daily.

celim307 9y ago

I have first hand experience in the datamodeling/credit report collation the biggest online lenders do. We know a lot.

pretamanger 9y ago

Concentrating all my credit and financial information into one company does concern me. However, I do want some insight into and options for my finances and financial health, and I know I don't have all the information to do that. I used YNAB for a bit, and I found it pretty stressful to do all the bookkeeping. I went back to my heuristic budgeting. I don't need to track every penny. CreditKarma is really helpful for monitoring. I've gotten some good card recommendations from them and my credit score has gone up 60 points with little effort. I did my taxes through them this year (more data for them!), but I was disappointed when my state return was incorrect and I got less money back. Given that my financials are getting more complicated, I'll likely be using an accountant/attorney this year. Most people, including myself, seem willing to give up their privacy and confidentiality in exchange for convenience. I try to play it as a zero-sum game. I've deleted all my social media accounts, because having that info plus my financials floating around seems like a bad idea. In regard to my financial data, I'll probably freak out in a few years and move all that to a professional to handle. This whole "social" experiment with tech is, in my eyes, a frightening failure. Given how slipshod the security and data handling is at most companies (including my workplace), it's only a matter of time until there are millions of digital doppelgangers running around committing fraud.