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I mean, you're rich. The normal rules don't really apply. Your poor credit sounds like my poor credit, but it has a pretty big impact on my life. You once men

I mean, you're rich. The normal rules don't really apply. Your poor credit sounds like my poor credit, but it has a pretty big impact on my life. You once mentioned you paid out of pocket to get your family member some kind of medical procedure. I think it was a CT scan? Anyone who can do that isn't really in the same class. Here's one way it matters: every year, your entire well-being is determined solely by your landlord. You can be an excellent tenant and they'll decide not to renew your lease because reasons. Now you need to move your whole apartment in like three months, which means finding a new place. In some cases this requires a credit check. Not all, but that still limits your options in a tricky situation. Imagine if the place you lived was determined solely by that number you didn't pay attention to. Want a nice car? Better have cash. Laptop? Cash. $3k to drop on a new laptop isn't feasible for the vast majority of people who aren't affluent. I know you mean well, and I share your "fuck this broken system" feeling, but it can get you into trouble. Rebellion only works if you have the means. Here's a concrete question: you need a laptop to do your job. How do you get one without credit? A second hand MacBook still costs >$1k. And yeah, we're talking sums of money that are tiny in comparison to what you're used to. It might be hard to believe that not everybody has $1k laying around. But paying $100/mo is far more pleasant, to say the least. Here's another anecdote: new apartment in a new city. I was about 21 and had no credit history (bad or otherwise). I'm settling into my new apartment and call around to find out who the ISP is. It's AT&T. Call them up, ask for Internet. "No." "What do you mean 'no?'" "The system says 'unknown risk'. Our policy is to not do business in this situation." I'm not exaggerating or making it up. There was no alternative, and I was completely screwed. There was no other ISP! We ended up using a family member to establish the account. But most people don't have anybody to fall back on. I don't know if AT&T still has that ridiculous policy, but there are other situations just like that.

tptacek 9y ago
Let me condense my last post down for you. 1. You're right, in the sense that most people on HN with an established career in technology are, relatively speaking, "rich". That was my point: if you're stably employed in technology, your credit score might matter less than you think it does. 2. You're wrong, in the sense that with the exception of the credit card anecdote, which I related as a way of demonstrating that I had in fact had some interaction with my credit score, all of that post concerned stuff that happened long before we sold Matasano. By the standards of HN in 2017, in the mid-00's, I was most assuredly not rich (the way you mean it; I'm just stipulating your term). I've had terrible credit the whole time. A big part of my point is that "just use cash" worked out much better for me than attempting to rely on credit. Obviously, if I worked as a retail clerk, that would a very problematic strategy. But I don't. If I had been able to resolve "need a new laptop" with credit instead of cash, I'd have been worse off. I get that the rules are different for tech workers. Part of the point of saying this is to remind people that the rules may be more different for us than we think, which should have moral implications for us as well.
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- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Well, you mention that you sold Matasano, but that kind of sidesteps that you'd be screwed if it didn't happen. It's not tech workers vs retail clerks so much as financial windfall vs having a regular 9-5. The credit system just sucks. It's a historical accident. But it's also not really realistic to say "In some cases you can get away with not worrying about your credit score if you're a tech worker."
  - tptacek 9y ago
    I'm not arguing that the credit system doesn't suck. It sucks so much that I haven't had any meaningful contact with it for 20 years. For most of that time, the overwhelming majority of which I spent financially insecure (and a parent, to boot), my disengagement from credit has ended up feeling like a blessing. I genuinely do not understand why people get credit cards. As for "windfall vs. 9-5", I spent ~20 years in the latter category, a category which I'm not unlikely to end up in again, and I simply don't agree with you. Maybe another way to put it is this: for all the problems you've had with personal finances, I assert that acquiring revolving credit is a good solution to none of them. Finally: since litigating this further is inevitably going to involve getting into pretty squicky financial details and debates over personal financial decision-making, I'm going to stop here. Since I think you'll probably disagree with me, I want to be clear that I expect and will read any rebuttal to this that you write, but I'm not going to continue the debate.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
quadrangle 9y ago
Although I agree with your point broadly, $3k on a laptop is either a business expense or a luxury. Furthermore, tons of non-rich people who do NOT have money to up and pay for expensive medical costs etc. can readily save up for an affordable laptop (you can get pretty decent second-hand for under $1k actually). People who don't have $800 or $500 lying around might sell some stuff on Craigslist or work a couple odd jobs and save it up. To be clear: everyone should understand that it's MORE expensive to be poor than to be rich. The key is a BUFFER, just like the buffer loading a streaming video. Someone with a $2k buffer can weather most common issues that come up as long as they can fill the buffer up again each time it gets used. Someone with a $2k buffer is not a truly poor person who is in debt and gets payday loans or worries about whether they will eat, but a buffer like can be had WAY before you can be called "rich" (and some rich folks can be incompetent and not keep a good buffer). The vast majority of people are in a position where they could keep some buffer if they learn to. The class difference here is whether or not someone gets the financial education to care about keeping a buffer. But obviously, some items can come up and kill any normal person's modest buffer, and then things get painful. And the rest of your points about how the system works are valid.
ams6110 9y ago
> It's AT&T. Call them up, ask for Internet. "No." "What do you mean 'no?'" "The system says 'unknown risk'. That surprises me. I have relatives who have TERRIBLE credit. Reposessed cars, unemployed, a lifetime of poor financial decisions. They have had no trouble getting utilities or e.g. DirecTV service. They typically have to pay several months in advance as a "deposit" but they are not turned down flat. Even "unknown risk" would be in the worst case approximately that. Doesn't seem to make sense.
- tptacek 9y ago
  I don't know if this is a late 201x thing, but over decades of having piss-poor credit and no funds with which to make advanced payments, I never once had a problem getting phone and Internet service. Renting cars? Yes. Needing to provide some extra documentation for landlords? Yes. Opening new checking accounts? Yes. Getting DSL or cable? Not once.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    I was surprised too. It was for having zero credit rather than bad credit. Maybe it was just a corner case I fell into. It was in Petaluma CA in 2010 or so.
    - mjcl 9y ago
      When I was moving into my first apartment in 2000, one of my planned roommates had the same problem. He had never had any sort of credit/debt account and the landlord wasn't able to actually pull a credit report.
redthrow 9y ago
It feels like there are many market-based solutions these days even if you had poor credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1AKOVHd3r4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1AKOVHd3r4

tptacek 9y ago

Let me condense my last post down for you. 1. You're right, in the sense that most people on HN with an established career in technology are, relatively speaking, "rich". That was my point: if you're stably employed in technology, your credit score might matter less than you think it does. 2. You're wrong, in the sense that with the exception of the credit card anecdote, which I related as a way of demonstrating that I had in fact had some interaction with my credit score, all of that post concerned stuff that happened long before we sold Matasano. By the standards of HN in 2017, in the mid-00's, I was most assuredly not rich (the way you mean it; I'm just stipulating your term). I've had terrible credit the whole time. A big part of my point is that "just use cash" worked out much better for me than attempting to rely on credit. Obviously, if I worked as a retail clerk, that would a very problematic strategy. But I don't. If I had been able to resolve "need a new laptop" with credit instead of cash, I'd have been worse off. I get that the rules are different for tech workers. Part of the point of saying this is to remind people that the rules may be more different for us than we think, which should have moral implications for us as well.

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sillysaurus3 9y ago
Well, you mention that you sold Matasano, but that kind of sidesteps that you'd be screwed if it didn't happen. It's not tech workers vs retail clerks so much as financial windfall vs having a regular 9-5. The credit system just sucks. It's a historical accident. But it's also not really realistic to say "In some cases you can get away with not worrying about your credit score if you're a tech worker."
- tptacek 9y ago
  I'm not arguing that the credit system doesn't suck. It sucks so much that I haven't had any meaningful contact with it for 20 years. For most of that time, the overwhelming majority of which I spent financially insecure (and a parent, to boot), my disengagement from credit has ended up feeling like a blessing. I genuinely do not understand why people get credit cards. As for "windfall vs. 9-5", I spent ~20 years in the latter category, a category which I'm not unlikely to end up in again, and I simply don't agree with you. Maybe another way to put it is this: for all the problems you've had with personal finances, I assert that acquiring revolving credit is a good solution to none of them. Finally: since litigating this further is inevitably going to involve getting into pretty squicky financial details and debates over personal financial decision-making, I'm going to stop here. Since I think you'll probably disagree with me, I want to be clear that I expect and will read any rebuttal to this that you write, but I'm not going to continue the debate.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago

quadrangle 9y ago

Although I agree with your point broadly, $3k on a laptop is either a business expense or a luxury. Furthermore, tons of non-rich people who do NOT have money to up and pay for expensive medical costs etc. can readily save up for an affordable laptop (you can get pretty decent second-hand for under $1k actually). People who don't have $800 or $500 lying around might sell some stuff on Craigslist or work a couple odd jobs and save it up. To be clear: everyone should understand that it's MORE expensive to be poor than to be rich. The key is a BUFFER, just like the buffer loading a streaming video. Someone with a $2k buffer can weather most common issues that come up as long as they can fill the buffer up again each time it gets used. Someone with a $2k buffer is not a truly poor person who is in debt and gets payday loans or worries about whether they will eat, but a buffer like can be had WAY before you can be called "rich" (and some rich folks can be incompetent and not keep a good buffer). The vast majority of people are in a position where they could keep some buffer if they learn to. The class difference here is whether or not someone gets the financial education to care about keeping a buffer. But obviously, some items can come up and kill any normal person's modest buffer, and then things get painful. And the rest of your points about how the system works are valid.

ams6110 9y ago

> It's AT&T. Call them up, ask for Internet. "No." "What do you mean 'no?'" "The system says 'unknown risk'. That surprises me. I have relatives who have TERRIBLE credit. Reposessed cars, unemployed, a lifetime of poor financial decisions. They have had no trouble getting utilities or e.g. DirecTV service. They typically have to pay several months in advance as a "deposit" but they are not turned down flat. Even "unknown risk" would be in the worst case approximately that. Doesn't seem to make sense.

tptacek 9y ago
I don't know if this is a late 201x thing, but over decades of having piss-poor credit and no funds with which to make advanced payments, I never once had a problem getting phone and Internet service. Renting cars? Yes. Needing to provide some extra documentation for landlords? Yes. Opening new checking accounts? Yes. Getting DSL or cable? Not once.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  I was surprised too. It was for having zero credit rather than bad credit. Maybe it was just a corner case I fell into. It was in Petaluma CA in 2010 or so.
  - mjcl 9y ago
    When I was moving into my first apartment in 2000, one of my planned roommates had the same problem. He had never had any sort of credit/debt account and the landlord wasn't able to actually pull a credit report.

redthrow 9y ago

It feels like there are many market-based solutions these days even if you had poor credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1AKOVHd3r4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1AKOVHd3r4