8 ms·

Who cares about this one lone guy and his punishment? Why is Equifax still around.. we have no say or opt in system to allow them to use our personal data for

Who cares about this one lone guy and his punishment? Why is Equifax still around.. we have no say or opt in system to allow them to use our personal data for their financial gain. I didnt agree to this! Isn't there an Equifax competitor that lets you opt in and is all about security. If not one of their competitors needs to rebrand as such or such a competitor needs to enter the market and whoop their a#*!

guntars 8y ago
That is assuming the market cares about opting in and security. Since their customer is a business that needs information on you and not you directly, I'd say it doesn't. The pressure to change will need to come from elsewhere.
aerotwelve 8y ago
Unfortunately, there's no business justification for any of them to do this. That is, the financial incentives just don't exist. Until we decide we've had enough of this and pass a real law that holds CRAs liable for the data they collect and store, absolutely nothing will change. Equifax's competitors know that, with no such law on the books, they have enough money to withstand the very few lawsuits that could come their way as a result of a breach. They know the average person doesn't have the spare cash or time to pursue such a case. Equifax should have been liquidated after demonstrating the degree of negligence they tolerated for years. They're still standing because we let them.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  > Until we decide we've had enough of this and pass a real law that holds CRAs liable for the data they collect and store, absolutely nothing will change. Correct. This is a problem caused by the market. Expecting market forces (a competitor with better offerings) to just fix it isn't productive.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    Its not a free market if you cant opt-out of it.
    - jakelazaroff 8y ago
      A market's degree of freedom and your ability to not participate are orthogonal. There are plenty of markets you cannot pragmatically opt out of, e.g. food and real estate.
      - munk-a 8y ago
        In the food and real estate market are there three companies that have formed an oligopoly on any transactions within the market? I don't disagree that some goods are inelastic and still can have robust free markets (see bottled water) but the credit score market is not one of them.
      - conanbatt 8y ago
        I disagree with this interpretation. Nobody can force-feed you, and you have the capacity to make your own food given the extreme. Real estate you can divide in housing and land. Housing is a free market, you can make your own shelter if you wish. You would have a point for land, it is not a free market.
- yarper 8y ago
  Does GDPR cover this?
jedberg 8y ago
You probably did opt in, many times. Pretty much every businesses that uses their data (like every credit card company) also agrees to send them data, and in turn require you to agree to allow them to send the data. When you get a mortgage, you have to agree to send the data to equifax -- you can't get a mortgage without it. So the only way we'll fix this is by getting all of those companies to agree not to send data to equifax, but they like sending data there, because they get even better data in return.
- athenot 8y ago
  More like coerced in as—like you say—it's required to get a mortgage or for that matter buy any financial product.
  - tylersmith 8y ago
    It's not coercion since it's well within your rights to not borrow money or buy financial products if you don't like the terms. Neither of the things you mentioned are life requirements. If you want them because you think you'd enjoy them then you need to agree to the other parties' stipulations, and if not you can continue to live without them. The fact that people have offered these products to the market doesn't mean you are entitled to have them under your own terms.
    - exotree 8y ago
      This is a disingenuous stance to take. You could hardly be employed, pay rent, buy food, and live a modern life in any sort of comfortable way with this perspective.
      - rvern 8y ago
        Live a modern life, comfortable by modern standards? You’re right about that. But people in the past lived in worse conditions that were considered modern and comfortable then and credit ratings, by making the market for loans more efficient than it was before (however bad it may still be, it’s better than what it replaced), contributed to the improvements. You want to have your cake and eat it too, and it would be nice if that was possible but it is not because nobody is going to give you cheap loans if it comes with too much risk.
city41 8y ago
If a competitor like that existed, there’d be no incentive to use them. Car dealers, banks, employers don’t care about your security, they care about your credit worthiness.
Thaxll 8y ago
EU doesn't have that kind of problem since those companies don't exist there. I'm not sure why NA is different...
- sigmaris 8y ago
  I'm in the UK and we certainly do have Experian, Equifax, and other credit reporting companies here.
  - Thaxll 8y ago
    I think it's a UK thing, never heard of that in the rest of Europe?
anitil 8y ago
Not that I have any love for Equifax, but to play devil's advocate - Trust forms the basis of all financial transactions. Credit ratings companies increase trust, reducing the price of these transactions. Removing these companies would increase the price of loans/credit cards/etc. (This ignores the fact that, for example, lenders in Australia mostly ignore credit ratings and instead focus on your earnings)
onetimemanytime 8y ago
Their core business is very legit and needed. Banks and lenders need to have a central system to see who pays back loans and who doesn't, so Equifax etc play a vital role. If you ask for a loan or a credit card, it's perfectly legitimate to ask you that your info in recorded somewhere (or else no loan). The problem is that companies are as good as their last quarter, so over decades and tens of quarters they had to do a lot of shady stuff to increase their earnings.

guntars 8y ago

That is assuming the market cares about opting in and security. Since their customer is a business that needs information on you and not you directly, I'd say it doesn't. The pressure to change will need to come from elsewhere.

aerotwelve 8y ago

Unfortunately, there's no business justification for any of them to do this. That is, the financial incentives just don't exist. Until we decide we've had enough of this and pass a real law that holds CRAs liable for the data they collect and store, absolutely nothing will change. Equifax's competitors know that, with no such law on the books, they have enough money to withstand the very few lawsuits that could come their way as a result of a breach. They know the average person doesn't have the spare cash or time to pursue such a case. Equifax should have been liquidated after demonstrating the degree of negligence they tolerated for years. They're still standing because we let them.

ModernMech 8y ago
> Until we decide we've had enough of this and pass a real law that holds CRAs liable for the data they collect and store, absolutely nothing will change. Correct. This is a problem caused by the market. Expecting market forces (a competitor with better offerings) to just fix it isn't productive.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Its not a free market if you cant opt-out of it.
  - jakelazaroff 8y ago
    A market's degree of freedom and your ability to not participate are orthogonal. There are plenty of markets you cannot pragmatically opt out of, e.g. food and real estate.
    - munk-a 8y ago
      In the food and real estate market are there three companies that have formed an oligopoly on any transactions within the market? I don't disagree that some goods are inelastic and still can have robust free markets (see bottled water) but the credit score market is not one of them.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      I disagree with this interpretation. Nobody can force-feed you, and you have the capacity to make your own food given the extreme. Real estate you can divide in housing and land. Housing is a free market, you can make your own shelter if you wish. You would have a point for land, it is not a free market.
yarper 8y ago
Does GDPR cover this?

jedberg 8y ago

You probably did opt in, many times. Pretty much every businesses that uses their data (like every credit card company) also agrees to send them data, and in turn require you to agree to allow them to send the data. When you get a mortgage, you have to agree to send the data to equifax -- you can't get a mortgage without it. So the only way we'll fix this is by getting all of those companies to agree not to send data to equifax, but they like sending data there, because they get even better data in return.

athenot 8y ago
More like coerced in as—like you say—it's required to get a mortgage or for that matter buy any financial product.
- tylersmith 8y ago
  It's not coercion since it's well within your rights to not borrow money or buy financial products if you don't like the terms. Neither of the things you mentioned are life requirements. If you want them because you think you'd enjoy them then you need to agree to the other parties' stipulations, and if not you can continue to live without them. The fact that people have offered these products to the market doesn't mean you are entitled to have them under your own terms.
  - exotree 8y ago
    This is a disingenuous stance to take. You could hardly be employed, pay rent, buy food, and live a modern life in any sort of comfortable way with this perspective.
    - rvern 8y ago
      Live a modern life, comfortable by modern standards? You’re right about that. But people in the past lived in worse conditions that were considered modern and comfortable then and credit ratings, by making the market for loans more efficient than it was before (however bad it may still be, it’s better than what it replaced), contributed to the improvements. You want to have your cake and eat it too, and it would be nice if that was possible but it is not because nobody is going to give you cheap loans if it comes with too much risk.

city41 8y ago

If a competitor like that existed, there’d be no incentive to use them. Car dealers, banks, employers don’t care about your security, they care about your credit worthiness.

Thaxll 8y ago

EU doesn't have that kind of problem since those companies don't exist there. I'm not sure why NA is different...

sigmaris 8y ago
I'm in the UK and we certainly do have Experian, Equifax, and other credit reporting companies here.
- Thaxll 8y ago
  I think it's a UK thing, never heard of that in the rest of Europe?

anitil 8y ago

Not that I have any love for Equifax, but to play devil's advocate - Trust forms the basis of all financial transactions. Credit ratings companies increase trust, reducing the price of these transactions. Removing these companies would increase the price of loans/credit cards/etc. (This ignores the fact that, for example, lenders in Australia mostly ignore credit ratings and instead focus on your earnings)

onetimemanytime 8y ago

Their core business is very legit and needed. Banks and lenders need to have a central system to see who pays back loans and who doesn't, so Equifax etc play a vital role. If you ask for a loan or a credit card, it's perfectly legitimate to ask you that your info in recorded somewhere (or else no loan). The problem is that companies are as good as their last quarter, so over decades and tens of quarters they had to do a lot of shady stuff to increase their earnings.