11 ms·

Credit Karma fined $3M by FTC for misleading consumers with credit card offers

195 points by fairytalemtg 4y ago

RileyJames 4y ago
>> Preserve records: To help prevent further use of deceptive dark patterns, the order requires Credit Karma to preserve records of any market, behavioral, or psychological research, or user, customer, or usability testing, including any A/B or multivariate testing, copy testing, surveys, focus groups, interviews, clickstream analysis, eye or mouse tracking studies, heat maps, or session replays or recordings. That’s quite interesting. Presumably they tried to use this as some excuse, or didn’t have the data available to enable the FTC to make a strong assessment as to how many people were presented with a deceptive offer.
- refurb 4y ago
  I worked in an industry where we were required to use a bunch of euphemisms throughout our internal documents for just this reason - if we were investigated by the government, all of those documents would be evidence and using words like “war room” would be used as proof of (channeling the DOJ press release team) “anti-competitive actions akin to a war where the enemy would be destroyed, and the defendant would have a monopoly”. So instead we used “team room”. The work never changed, just what we called it.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    Wouldn't any judge see right through such bullshit?
    - refurb 4y ago
      Antitrust is notoriously hard to prove. It often comes down to intent. Internal documents and how the company talks about business decisions can be enough to sway minds in a situation where you’re trying to convince a judge/jury what the company was thinking. Clearly if you’re trying to put a competitor out of business then calling it a “team room” won’t matter one bit.
      - svnt 4y ago
        Is this true? Given monopolistic consequences are structural and inevitable, it seems the law should be enforced on structure and function and not require deliberate intent.
        refurb 4y ago
        Anti-trust isn’t black and white. The government encourage competition, but when you compete to become the only company, then it’s anti-trust. The line is very fuzzy.
- drc500free 4y ago
  That is VERY interesting. Complying with this is probably a bigger headache than the fine.
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    The pattern continues onwards. Compliance orders usually have an expiration date, and companies usually go back to the same behavior after the compliance order expires. It's similar to catch me if you can except it's billions of dollars of staff and equipment and transactions.
- ipsum2 4y ago
  Doesn't this conflict with California Consumer Privacy Act?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Doesn't this conflict with California Consumer Privacy Act? The FTC was created by the Federal Trade Commission Act [1], a federal law. That gives it supremacy over California law. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_Act_of_1914 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_Act_o...
Bud 4y ago
All the offers Credit Karma has presented to me have been legit, near as I can tell. I have had no complaints about their app and it has helped me to vastly improve my credit rating. I'm surprised to see this story.
- mod 4y ago
  I think they've grown, but it was a one-man company for a long time. Edit: I don't know what I'm talking about, seems like. It's always been great, so I'm also surprised. Glad he can afford it.
  - charles_kaw 4y ago
    They have something like 2000 employees now.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    > one man company > Glad he can afford it ??? https://squareup.com/us/en/press/credit-karma-tax https://squareup.com/us/en/press/credit-karma-tax
  - jsjohnst 4y ago
    > I think they've grown, but it was a one-man company for a long time. Say what? From day one it wasn’t a one-man company, they had multiple founders from the beginning.
- bern4444 4y ago
  Credit Karma was bought by Intuit - the makers of turbo tax who are responsible for lobbying against the IRS from supporting its own free online tax filing service. Luckily that is changing. I have little trust in Intuit.
EnderWT 4y ago
More information direct from FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/ftc-takes-action-stop-credit-karma-tricking-consumers-allegedly-false-pre-approved-credit-offers https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/...
- gruez 4y ago
  Yeah the linked website in the OP is basically a rehash with less details. It even has forced smooth scroll to boot.
charles_kaw 4y ago
>The FTC alleges that the company used claims that consumers were pre-approved and had ’90 per cent odds’ to entice them to apply for offers that, in many instances, they ultimately did not qualify for. I believe CK has inside views to the models^ these companies use, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that 90% is actually very close to reality. However, I can also see why someone taking a hard credit pull would be very annoyed to be declined. Also, Credit Karma gets paid for successful conversions, and maybe ad placement? It doesn't seem like misleading someone got them any profit. This all around seems like a really weird thing to slap this company with - Credit Karma doesn't really directly profit^^ from getting this wrong, nor do their partners. Yes, Credit Karma screwed up, but to frame it as "misleading consumers" makes it sound a lot worse than it is. I wonder if there is missing subtext or inside baseball that makes this all make a lot more sense. Regardless, that language does seem misleading, and I'm glad to see it be turned into something more accurate and informative. ^ they seem to have some sort of b2b platform ("lightbox"?) for letting their vendors import their models into credit karma. It's probably pretty powerful for a lender to change and simulate new model changes for targeting offers. ^^ pissing off your users while not making money is always a bad look
- hackernewds 4y ago
  > CK has inside views to the models these companies use, and wouldn't be surprised to find that 90% is actualy very close to reality. or the basis as is obvious is that this was a fraudulent claim. these things get researched thoroughly before they levied
  - charles_kaw 4y ago
    I read it more as "using uncertainty" is a dark pattern and to stop it even if it's accurate. 10% of users a company with that many is a pretty significant impact to people. I reread the article again, and it seems to me it was "pre-approved" that was the issue. Regardless, it's good the behavior was noticed and stopped.
  - spoils19 4y ago
    I doubt it - CK is funded and the FTC is underfunded. Trusting the government over private in this scenario could be perilous.
colechristensen 4y ago
Intuit bought credit karma for 8 billion. For me a parking ticket is orders of magnitude more motivation than this fine.
- gumby 4y ago
ck2 4y ago
Can we guesstimate that fine as "days of profit" ? one month? one year?
- spullara 4y ago
  My guess is that they aren't profitable at all.
  - hn_acc_2 4y ago
    Your guess is wrong, their Q2 revenue this year was reported $444M
    - tpxl 4y ago
      Revenue is not profit. Revenue - expenses is profit. You can pump your revenue as high as you want by selling dollar bills for 90 cents.
      - hn_acc_2 4y ago
        Obviously this is true but CK doesn't sell dollar bills for 90 cents.
    - spullara 4y ago
      Revenue != Profit
      - hn_acc_2 4y ago
        Yes..... and the only way a $444M quarterly revenue company "aren't profitable at all" is if their costs are >$444M / quarter. That's what my comment was getting at. Does GP really think a business like CK costs that much to run?
  - gpapilion 4y ago
    Credit Karma provided intuit with $475m in revenue for its Q4’22 earnings. Inuit posted a loss but I suspect credit karma was break even or slightly profitable. https://s23.q4cdn.com/935127502/files/doc_financials/2022/q4/FQ4-2022-Earnings-Script.pdf https://s23.q4cdn.com/935127502/files/doc_financials/2022/q4...
LeoPanthera 4y ago
I've never seen a website so successfully bypass my adblocker. Both DNS level and browser blockers don't seem to make any difference.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  I believe they're self-hosting the ads, so if you can see the page at all, you'll see the ads.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Usually browser based adblockers such as Ublock Origin apply extra logic on top of domains to determine if it's an ad or not and if it should be blocked, and they're usually quite successful.
    - ev1 4y ago
      Yeah none of these are ad networks, they are literally gifs uploaded to the site's wp-content folder like a normal blog post.
    - tr1ll10nb1ll 4y ago
      They could be routinely proxying and renaming the routes for their self-hosted ad network script to fly under the radar. Sort of what you would do to get your analytics script past UBlock. Like, use Cloudflare worker or something to proxy your analytics script and it won't get blocked. Just a thought, far from sure.
distantaidenn 4y ago
I have zero debt. Absolutely zero. However, I left the States soon after graduating university, and thus also have (had) no credit history there. Since I've been planning to return soon, I've been trying to build a history, so when the time comes, I can get a mortgage loan. The process of building a credit history has been enlightening and frustrating. I'm in the tech world, as most people in this forum is as well. I make a pretty decent salary in said tech world. However, I qualify for zero unsecured credit cards. I also don't qualify for any small personal loans. I attempted to get both in order to build a credit history. I mean, I can't even get a personal loan for $500. Nothing, nada, zilch. All I can do now is get a secured card and hold on to that for some time -- which is what I have been doing for about a year so far. However, I am constantly, and I mean constantly flooded with emails with special "pre-approved" credit cards and personal loans. I applied for a couple and of course was rejected. Oh, and of course, when you apply for these "pre-approved" offers, they do a credit check, which for some reason has a negative impact on your credit score. It's insane that we let 3 companies (Equifax, Experian, and Transunion) control so much of our lives, with little insight as to what their scores actually reflect. CreditKarma is just a vehicle within this sector. The entire system is broken and needs a complete overhaul.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Nothing, nada, zilch. All I can do now is get a secured card and hold on to that for some time -- which is what I have been doing for about a year so far I started with a blank credit folio late in life. This was not my experience. It may make sense for you to speak to your bank or to a financial advisor.
  - distantaidenn 4y ago
    I'm afraid a lot _might_ have to do with my registered address (zip code) in the States, when I try to apply. Inner city and all that. Edit: The rejection note that I normally receive is: insufficient credit history. To me it's a catch-22 situation. It always boggles my mind when I see 20 somethings with 10s of thousands of dollars in credit card and loan debt, while I can't even get in the door. Not saying I plan on having any debt, just that I would like the opportunity to receive a loan when I want it.
systoll 4y ago
It’s a weird case IMO — CreditKarma played a role but it seems like all the actual harm was elsewhere. 1. The Criteria are given by the banks via 'Lightbox'. If they were misrepresenting those criteria, it seems like the harm was to the banks, but this isn't mentioned. And if they couldn’t express their criteria via lightbox and used it anyway… again it seems like that’s mostly on the banks. 2. I suspect these estimates were better than nothing, which is basically what bank websites usually give you before you apply. 3. CreditKarma isn’t making the applications. The lenders are the ones forcing a 'hard pull' before telling you if the loan is available to you. 4. The credit score companies are the ones that decided that the 'hard pulls' would reduce people’s credit score for a significant period. Why is this only a problem if they used CreditKarma? 5. The new lender is the one rejecting loan applications based on credit score changes caused by the client shopping around. Why is this only a problem if they used CreditKarma? ** It seems like there’s a need for a 'credit lock' that absolutely tanks your credit score while you are being checked, to avoid people applying for multiple lines of credit simultaneously. Having lasting impacts beyond that seems anti-consumer, since it means you’re penalised for shopping around. CreditKarma was an imperfect band-aid over that, but penalising them for that seems like treating the symptoms and not the cause.
- ricardonunez 4y ago
  I never understood, they can get most of the data using a soft pull and pre approve, then why do a hard pull? Is it by law?
avg_dev 4y ago
Things I think are worth noting: 1. Intuit owns Credit Karma > Intuit has lobbied extensively against the IRS providing taxpayers with free pre-filled forms, as is the norm in developed countries.[108][11][109] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit 2. Intuit owns Mailchimp. Mailchump was hacked earlier this year. > In a scant blog post dated August 12, just two days after the company’s co-founder and long-time CEO Ben Chestnut stepped down, Mailchimp said a recent but undated attack saw threat actors targeting data and information from “crypto-related companies” using phishing and social engineering tactics. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that 214 Mailchimp accounts were affected by the incident, which comes just months after hackers compromised an internal Mailchimp tool to access information on 300 accounts. - https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/16/digitalocean-emails-mailchimp-breach/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/16/digitalocean-emails-mailch... I don't know for sure but I believe this could have been prevented by the use of hardware U2F tokens, the cost of which is pretty small compared to the consequences of this breach, which affected DO and others. On a personal note, I used to have bad credit, and I grew in the habit of regularly checking my credit score on Credit Karma. They used to send me emails telling me to check my credit score, that my score had fallen, or it had risen, and so on. The emails were unnecessary - it was ingrained in me to check the app on a ~weekly basis. Eventually, I realized that my score had been at an acceptable level for years, and I unsubscribed from the mails, deleted the app off of my phone, and stopped checking. In my opinion, this was predatory behavior, preying on the vulnerabilities and insecurities of people like me or people who had it much worse. To sum up: Intuit is not a good company. They care about making a buck and don't care about the consumer; in fact they actively work against the consumer. I don't understand why the connection between Mailchimp, Credit Karma, and Intuit is not front and center in all of these articles.
- uptown 4y ago
  Didn’t realize Intuit owned Mailchimp. It one online tool whose UX I hate with a passion. Mint comes close. What are some good alternatives to Mint for financial account aggregation?
  - flaviut 4y ago
notinfuriated 4y ago
Having worked at CK, specifically on personal loans, I'm going to with Hanlon's razor here. (Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.) Not saying the fine isn't warranted, it is. CK was a place where things were so complex (perhaps needlessly) you couldn't find anyone to explain what was going on. On this topic, you could ask people on the data team how their models worked (to determine what card or loan offers show to what users) and they seemed to have no idea, they just wanted to put the models in an AB test and see if conversion numbers went up or down. Aside from this, there was plenty of politicking and ambitious people. Not surprised no one was really paying attention to whether or not they were running afoul of any laws. Also, I'm going to guess they made more than $3M on these mistakes that likely impacted their users' credit scores negatively.
- sabman83 4y ago
  Having worked in CK, I can vouch for the same view about the data science team. It was shocking how bad they were.
  - karatinversion 4y ago
    Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, to coin a phrase; which is why many laws have an “intentionally or recklessly” clause
    - svnt 4y ago
      Both essentially come back to the same underlying idea: the egregious lack of concern.
causality0 4y ago
Fines that are lower than the financial gains may as well be stamps of approval.

195 points by fairytalemtg 4y ago

>> Preserve records: To help prevent further use of deceptive dark patterns, the order requires Credit Karma to preserve records of any market, behavioral, or psychological research, or user, customer, or usability testing, including any A/B or multivariate testing, copy testing, surveys, focus groups, interviews, clickstream analysis, eye or mouse tracking studies, heat maps, or session replays or recordings. That’s quite interesting. Presumably they tried to use this as some excuse, or didn’t have the data available to enable the FTC to make a strong assessment as to how many people were presented with a deceptive offer.

refurb 4y ago
I worked in an industry where we were required to use a bunch of euphemisms throughout our internal documents for just this reason - if we were investigated by the government, all of those documents would be evidence and using words like “war room” would be used as proof of (channeling the DOJ press release team) “anti-competitive actions akin to a war where the enemy would be destroyed, and the defendant would have a monopoly”. So instead we used “team room”. The work never changed, just what we called it.
- tpxl 4y ago
  Wouldn't any judge see right through such bullshit?
  - refurb 4y ago
    Antitrust is notoriously hard to prove. It often comes down to intent. Internal documents and how the company talks about business decisions can be enough to sway minds in a situation where you’re trying to convince a judge/jury what the company was thinking. Clearly if you’re trying to put a competitor out of business then calling it a “team room” won’t matter one bit.
    - svnt 4y ago
      Is this true? Given monopolistic consequences are structural and inevitable, it seems the law should be enforced on structure and function and not require deliberate intent.
      - refurb 4y ago
        Anti-trust isn’t black and white. The government encourage competition, but when you compete to become the only company, then it’s anti-trust. The line is very fuzzy.
drc500free 4y ago
That is VERY interesting. Complying with this is probably a bigger headache than the fine.
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  The pattern continues onwards. Compliance orders usually have an expiration date, and companies usually go back to the same behavior after the compliance order expires. It's similar to catch me if you can except it's billions of dollars of staff and equipment and transactions.
ipsum2 4y ago
Doesn't this conflict with California Consumer Privacy Act?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Doesn't this conflict with California Consumer Privacy Act? The FTC was created by the Federal Trade Commission Act [1], a federal law. That gives it supremacy over California law. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_Act_of_1914 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_Act_o...

Bud 4y ago

All the offers Credit Karma has presented to me have been legit, near as I can tell. I have had no complaints about their app and it has helped me to vastly improve my credit rating. I'm surprised to see this story.

mod 4y ago
I think they've grown, but it was a one-man company for a long time. Edit: I don't know what I'm talking about, seems like. It's always been great, so I'm also surprised. Glad he can afford it.
- charles_kaw 4y ago
  They have something like 2000 employees now.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  > one man company > Glad he can afford it ??? https://squareup.com/us/en/press/credit-karma-tax https://squareup.com/us/en/press/credit-karma-tax
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > I think they've grown, but it was a one-man company for a long time. Say what? From day one it wasn’t a one-man company, they had multiple founders from the beginning.
bern4444 4y ago
Credit Karma was bought by Intuit - the makers of turbo tax who are responsible for lobbying against the IRS from supporting its own free online tax filing service. Luckily that is changing. I have little trust in Intuit.

EnderWT 4y ago

More information direct from FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/ftc-takes-action-stop-credit-karma-tricking-consumers-allegedly-false-pre-approved-credit-offers https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/...

gruez 4y ago
Yeah the linked website in the OP is basically a rehash with less details. It even has forced smooth scroll to boot.

charles_kaw 4y ago

>The FTC alleges that the company used claims that consumers were pre-approved and had ’90 per cent odds’ to entice them to apply for offers that, in many instances, they ultimately did not qualify for. I believe CK has inside views to the models^ these companies use, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that 90% is actually very close to reality. However, I can also see why someone taking a hard credit pull would be very annoyed to be declined. Also, Credit Karma gets paid for successful conversions, and maybe ad placement? It doesn't seem like misleading someone got them any profit. This all around seems like a really weird thing to slap this company with - Credit Karma doesn't really directly profit^^ from getting this wrong, nor do their partners. Yes, Credit Karma screwed up, but to frame it as "misleading consumers" makes it sound a lot worse than it is. I wonder if there is missing subtext or inside baseball that makes this all make a lot more sense. Regardless, that language does seem misleading, and I'm glad to see it be turned into something more accurate and informative. ^ they seem to have some sort of b2b platform ("lightbox"?) for letting their vendors import their models into credit karma. It's probably pretty powerful for a lender to change and simulate new model changes for targeting offers. ^^ pissing off your users while not making money is always a bad look

hackernewds 4y ago
> CK has inside views to the models these companies use, and wouldn't be surprised to find that 90% is actualy very close to reality. or the basis as is obvious is that this was a fraudulent claim. these things get researched thoroughly before they levied
- charles_kaw 4y ago
  I read it more as "using uncertainty" is a dark pattern and to stop it even if it's accurate. 10% of users a company with that many is a pretty significant impact to people. I reread the article again, and it seems to me it was "pre-approved" that was the issue. Regardless, it's good the behavior was noticed and stopped.
- spoils19 4y ago
  I doubt it - CK is funded and the FTC is underfunded. Trusting the government over private in this scenario could be perilous.

colechristensen 4y ago

Intuit bought credit karma for 8 billion. For me a parking ticket is orders of magnitude more motivation than this fine.

gumby 4y ago

ck2 4y ago

Can we guesstimate that fine as "days of profit" ? one month? one year?

spullara 4y ago
My guess is that they aren't profitable at all.
- hn_acc_2 4y ago
  Your guess is wrong, their Q2 revenue this year was reported $444M
  - tpxl 4y ago
    Revenue is not profit. Revenue - expenses is profit. You can pump your revenue as high as you want by selling dollar bills for 90 cents.
    - hn_acc_2 4y ago
      Obviously this is true but CK doesn't sell dollar bills for 90 cents.
  - spullara 4y ago
    Revenue != Profit
    - hn_acc_2 4y ago
      Yes..... and the only way a $444M quarterly revenue company "aren't profitable at all" is if their costs are >$444M / quarter. That's what my comment was getting at. Does GP really think a business like CK costs that much to run?
- gpapilion 4y ago
  Credit Karma provided intuit with $475m in revenue for its Q4’22 earnings. Inuit posted a loss but I suspect credit karma was break even or slightly profitable. https://s23.q4cdn.com/935127502/files/doc_financials/2022/q4/FQ4-2022-Earnings-Script.pdf https://s23.q4cdn.com/935127502/files/doc_financials/2022/q4...

LeoPanthera 4y ago

I've never seen a website so successfully bypass my adblocker. Both DNS level and browser blockers don't seem to make any difference.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
I believe they're self-hosting the ads, so if you can see the page at all, you'll see the ads.
- sofixa 4y ago
  Usually browser based adblockers such as Ublock Origin apply extra logic on top of domains to determine if it's an ad or not and if it should be blocked, and they're usually quite successful.
  - ev1 4y ago
    Yeah none of these are ad networks, they are literally gifs uploaded to the site's wp-content folder like a normal blog post.
  - tr1ll10nb1ll 4y ago
    They could be routinely proxying and renaming the routes for their self-hosted ad network script to fly under the radar. Sort of what you would do to get your analytics script past UBlock. Like, use Cloudflare worker or something to proxy your analytics script and it won't get blocked. Just a thought, far from sure.

distantaidenn 4y ago

I have zero debt. Absolutely zero. However, I left the States soon after graduating university, and thus also have (had) no credit history there. Since I've been planning to return soon, I've been trying to build a history, so when the time comes, I can get a mortgage loan. The process of building a credit history has been enlightening and frustrating. I'm in the tech world, as most people in this forum is as well. I make a pretty decent salary in said tech world. However, I qualify for zero unsecured credit cards. I also don't qualify for any small personal loans. I attempted to get both in order to build a credit history. I mean, I can't even get a personal loan for $500. Nothing, nada, zilch. All I can do now is get a secured card and hold on to that for some time -- which is what I have been doing for about a year so far. However, I am constantly, and I mean constantly flooded with emails with special "pre-approved" credit cards and personal loans. I applied for a couple and of course was rejected. Oh, and of course, when you apply for these "pre-approved" offers, they do a credit check, which for some reason has a negative impact on your credit score. It's insane that we let 3 companies (Equifax, Experian, and Transunion) control so much of our lives, with little insight as to what their scores actually reflect. CreditKarma is just a vehicle within this sector. The entire system is broken and needs a complete overhaul.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Nothing, nada, zilch. All I can do now is get a secured card and hold on to that for some time -- which is what I have been doing for about a year so far I started with a blank credit folio late in life. This was not my experience. It may make sense for you to speak to your bank or to a financial advisor.
- distantaidenn 4y ago
  I'm afraid a lot _might_ have to do with my registered address (zip code) in the States, when I try to apply. Inner city and all that. Edit: The rejection note that I normally receive is: insufficient credit history. To me it's a catch-22 situation. It always boggles my mind when I see 20 somethings with 10s of thousands of dollars in credit card and loan debt, while I can't even get in the door. Not saying I plan on having any debt, just that I would like the opportunity to receive a loan when I want it.

systoll 4y ago

It’s a weird case IMO — CreditKarma played a role but it seems like all the actual harm was elsewhere. 1. The Criteria are given by the banks via 'Lightbox'. If they were misrepresenting those criteria, it seems like the harm was to the banks, but this isn't mentioned. And if they couldn’t express their criteria via lightbox and used it anyway… again it seems like that’s mostly on the banks. 2. I suspect these estimates were better than nothing, which is basically what bank websites usually give you before you apply. 3. CreditKarma isn’t making the applications. The lenders are the ones forcing a 'hard pull' before telling you if the loan is available to you. 4. The credit score companies are the ones that decided that the 'hard pulls' would reduce people’s credit score for a significant period. Why is this only a problem if they used CreditKarma? 5. The new lender is the one rejecting loan applications based on credit score changes caused by the client shopping around. Why is this only a problem if they used CreditKarma? ** It seems like there’s a need for a 'credit lock' that absolutely tanks your credit score while you are being checked, to avoid people applying for multiple lines of credit simultaneously. Having lasting impacts beyond that seems anti-consumer, since it means you’re penalised for shopping around. CreditKarma was an imperfect band-aid over that, but penalising them for that seems like treating the symptoms and not the cause.

ricardonunez 4y ago
I never understood, they can get most of the data using a soft pull and pre approve, then why do a hard pull? Is it by law?

avg_dev 4y ago

Things I think are worth noting: 1. Intuit owns Credit Karma > Intuit has lobbied extensively against the IRS providing taxpayers with free pre-filled forms, as is the norm in developed countries.[108][11][109] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit 2. Intuit owns Mailchimp. Mailchump was hacked earlier this year. > In a scant blog post dated August 12, just two days after the company’s co-founder and long-time CEO Ben Chestnut stepped down, Mailchimp said a recent but undated attack saw threat actors targeting data and information from “crypto-related companies” using phishing and social engineering tactics. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that 214 Mailchimp accounts were affected by the incident, which comes just months after hackers compromised an internal Mailchimp tool to access information on 300 accounts. - https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/16/digitalocean-emails-mailchimp-breach/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/16/digitalocean-emails-mailch... I don't know for sure but I believe this could have been prevented by the use of hardware U2F tokens, the cost of which is pretty small compared to the consequences of this breach, which affected DO and others. On a personal note, I used to have bad credit, and I grew in the habit of regularly checking my credit score on Credit Karma. They used to send me emails telling me to check my credit score, that my score had fallen, or it had risen, and so on. The emails were unnecessary - it was ingrained in me to check the app on a ~weekly basis. Eventually, I realized that my score had been at an acceptable level for years, and I unsubscribed from the mails, deleted the app off of my phone, and stopped checking. In my opinion, this was predatory behavior, preying on the vulnerabilities and insecurities of people like me or people who had it much worse. To sum up: Intuit is not a good company. They care about making a buck and don't care about the consumer; in fact they actively work against the consumer. I don't understand why the connection between Mailchimp, Credit Karma, and Intuit is not front and center in all of these articles.

uptown 4y ago
Didn’t realize Intuit owned Mailchimp. It one online tool whose UX I hate with a passion. Mint comes close. What are some good alternatives to Mint for financial account aggregation?
- flaviut 4y ago

notinfuriated 4y ago

Having worked at CK, specifically on personal loans, I'm going to with Hanlon's razor here. (Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.) Not saying the fine isn't warranted, it is. CK was a place where things were so complex (perhaps needlessly) you couldn't find anyone to explain what was going on. On this topic, you could ask people on the data team how their models worked (to determine what card or loan offers show to what users) and they seemed to have no idea, they just wanted to put the models in an AB test and see if conversion numbers went up or down. Aside from this, there was plenty of politicking and ambitious people. Not surprised no one was really paying attention to whether or not they were running afoul of any laws. Also, I'm going to guess they made more than $3M on these mistakes that likely impacted their users' credit scores negatively.

sabman83 4y ago
Having worked in CK, I can vouch for the same view about the data science team. It was shocking how bad they were.
- karatinversion 4y ago
  Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, to coin a phrase; which is why many laws have an “intentionally or recklessly” clause
  - svnt 4y ago
    Both essentially come back to the same underlying idea: the egregious lack of concern.

causality0 4y ago

Fines that are lower than the financial gains may as well be stamps of approval.