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Experian is a pile of dark pattern garbage
- bondolo 4y agoIf the credit reporting companies are all such sleazy incompetent dirtbags why is it still impossible to opt-out from most credit reporting data collection?
- LeoPanthera 4y agoExperian is the only agency that doesn't allow you to lock your credit for free, only "freeze" it. The differences aren't immediately obvious, but locking can be undone (nearly) instantaneously, whereas un-freezing takes many days. If the others can do it, Experian could do, but they treat protecting your identity as a revenue stream. Disgusting.
- ezfe 4y agounfreezing is instant, I have mine frozen and unfreeze it when I need to apply for credit without any problem. they just lie to make it sound less appealing.
- LeoPanthera 4y agoThen explain why they also offer locking (for a fee), and what the difference is?
- BenjiWiebe 4y agoI ignore that part. I just know that I can instantly freeze/unfreeze. Just did it last week in fact, at all 3.
- ezfe 4y agodark patterns...there's no reason to pay for locking
- r3trohack3r 4y agoI’ve never been able to figure out the difference and haven’t cared to dig much deeper. I use the freeze and have been able to unfreeze on the spot when needed (I.e. at the counter at a bank). From what I could tell the lock is a dark pattern to charge for something that is free and (potentially) less effective than the freeze since, from my understanding, the freeze is regulated where the lock is not.
- megablast 4y agoLocking costs money. Freezing is free.
- LeoPanthera 4y agoExperian is the only credit agency where locking isn't free.
- daleswanson 4y agoFreezing is always what you want, that's what they are required by law to provide. There is no law that says they can't also provide something similar and encourage people to pay for that, and that's what locking is. I recently applied for a credit card and temporarily unfroze (thawed) my credit with all 3 bureaus a few minutes before I submitted the application and was approved.
- keyanp 4y agoThis is just another dark pattern. All you need is freezing, it’s instant to freeze/unfreeze and required to be free by law. They just hide the option on the site and make it seem like you need to pay for “locking”. I end up having to use Google every time to actually find the page to unfreeze.
- jsharkey 4y agoA few months ago I was able to bypass creating an account (and sidestepping all the dark patterns) by just calling their automated phone number and unfreezing with my PIN. Was pretty painless.
- nukeman 4y agoHow did you get a PIN in the first place?
- hildebrand_rare 4y agoThose upsell marketing emails without unsubscribe links because they are "account related emails" are the worst. I quickly solved the problem by marking everything from Experian as spam, but I can't think of another service where I've gone searching for an unsubscribe link and haven't found one. Their messaging at the bottom of these emails for anyone who is curious: "This is not a marketing email — you’re receiving this message to notify you of a recent change to your account. If you’ve unsubscribed from Experian CreditWorks℠ Basic emails in the past, don’t worry — you no longer receive newsletters or special offers." Checking my spam folder, it looks like I've already received two of them this calendar month.
- alexose 4y agoI signed up for an Experian account in order to correct a mistake on my credit report-- They had listed a bank account under my name that was created well before I was born, and it was tanking my credit rating. Unfortunately I used my main email to sign up (to correct their mistake) and started getting those non-unsubscribable emails shortly after. So insulting. I did end up fixing it by changing my account email address to fuckyou@experian.sucks, though.
- dylan604 4y agodid it really solve the problem, or do 2 emails now go out on your behalf?
- justinclift 4y agoYeah, that sounds like a potential problem. Doing a quick search for how to register .sucks domains shows up this (no idea if it's legit though): https://get.sucks https://get.sucks That website says the "experian.sucks" domain is available... for US$1999. A bit "ouch" pricing wise, but it sounds like someone could potentially take over the accounts of anyone using @experian.sucks for their email address.
- alexose 4y ago
- urbandw311er 4y agoI think Andrew raises a good point which is: how exactly do we raise awareness of these sort of dark patterns that are tantamount to fraud in many cases (he cites the “mum test” which I entirely agree with) Is there a lobby group, or a company that focuses on targeting and shaming these things? I would be 100% up for devoting a few hours a month, or even paid employment, to bringing these sort of people down.
- cwkoss 4y agoHell yeah, I'd be down too.
- ChainOfFools 4y agoYour targets have hundreds of millions of dollars to thwart your group, whether legally or with counter messaging, or through lobbying. Your group, being paid by a trickle of donations, is highly dependent on maintaining high motivation in order to marshall the energy necessary to go at this day in and day out for what could be years or even decades of frustrating, unrewarded effort. This is a fundamental problem with large scale fraud, which is that the fraudsters have the money and the established networks first, and everyone has to fight to claw it back from their grasp while also disrupting the networks that enabled the fraud to grow in the first place. The "everyone" being those from whom the money is being taken, who are therefore that much less equipped to mount a sustained attack. tl;dr you'll be battling the bullshit asymmetry principle, except with money
- cwkoss 4y agoI feel like the main problem is that the practice is so pervasive and diffuse its hard to focus attention on a particular target. The most effective course of action is to adopt a strategy of intentional unfairness: pick one offender at semi-random and focus on maximally punishing them using all legally available remedies until they change. If we could coordinate and focus all the diffuse hatred people have for these practices on one target at a time, I think it could be forceful enough to create change.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- markdoubleyou 4y agoI have a free Experian account that I look at every few months. Every time I log in, a big, disorienting interstitial appears and pitches me on Experian CreditWorks Premium ($25/month), with fields asking for my credit card info. It's designed like it's part of a normal registration/login process that you're supposed to fill in. You have to scroll down past all of it to the bottom of the page and click the washed-out, kind-of-disabled-looking button that says "No, keep my current membership", at which point they reluctantly take you to your normal account overview page.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoPlease file an FTC complaint. It’ll get to the right people. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-ramp-enforcement-against-illegal-dark-patterns-trick-or-trap-consumers-subscriptions https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/10/... https://www.ftc.gov/reports/bringing-dark-patterns-light https://www.ftc.gov/reports/bringing-dark-patterns-light
- markdoubleyou 4y agoThe problem is that they don't blatantly violate any of the policy bullets in that FTC press release... all the terms are spelled out in the interstitial. The issue is that the design goes out of its way to give it a very mandatory vibe. I don't log in very often, but I always have to catch myself ("...wait, what is this? Do I have to do this?"), and then remember to go hunting for the NoThanks button. It has a very opt-out feel.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoLet the regulator evaluate if they want to take action. Not filing a complaint guarantees no action will be taken. Filing the complaint takes <5 min. My two cents.
- markdoubleyou 4y agoFair enough, it's filed.
- tracker1 4y agoWhat bugs me most is the "your email address is compromised" messages... they're meaningless... my email address is nearly two decades old, I'm sure it's on many lists. But without any indication of where/how or if there's a password associated with any breach, it's just noise.
- CatWChainsaw 4y agoI used to have a free account with Whitepages before 2016 or thereabouts when they offered a free tier. I doubt it was comprehensive because I only ever got a couple alerts about my email, but it did let you know which breach it was. I'm not sure how good the paid tier they now offer is.
- quwert95 4y agoAs bad as Experian is, at least the baseline product works for free unlike TransUnion.
- tristanb 4y agoThe credit agencies suck in every possible way. They should be legislated into obscurity.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cwkoss 4y agoPrivatized credit rating agencies are so outdated and barbaric. Feds should nationalize them into a single public service run without profit.
- nerdponx 4y agoI'm tempted to agree. It might even be self-funding once you consider the revenue that a credit rating agency brings in.
- judge2020 4y agoThese are credit reporting agencies, not credit rating agencies. Credit rating agencies are primarily for directly assessing a credit report for the likelihood of the debtor to either pay back, or default, on a loan. On the other hand, the 3 credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) work by simply gathering credit information, and using industry standard (and usually shared[0]) scoring models to assign a FICO or Vantage score to individuals, after which the lender can use any of their own classification criteria to deny credit or assign an interest rate. 0: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sI6l_Z5SyJqx4xXwlLYLaXOmP_R3i6XtnBYPYVDOlrg/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sI6l_Z5SyJqx4xXwlLYL...
- phonon 4y agoWho do you think owns VantageScore? https://vantagescore.com/company/about-vantagescore/ https://vantagescore.com/company/about-vantagescore/
- judge2020 4y agoThe point is that it's standard. Credit rating agencies have their own formulas and risk assessment profiles, and typically assess a debtor's ability to pay back a debt in aggregate with other debtors. When companies are shuffling around and selling debt on the backend, they ask a credit rating agency to assess the debt, since a FICO/Vantage score isn't a full picture on how likely a debtor is to pay back a loan. The only difference between the 3 credit reporting agencies are how good their contracts are with lenders in terms of aggregating the most accurate and up-to-date data.
- winstonprivacy 4y agoDon't get me started on Experian. Their core service is providing credit scores to lenders. Years ago, I went through a rigorous process to clean up my credit, something which took months but was at least honest on their part. Then they began erecting hurdles, such as a neverending stream of rejection letters requesting further detail when trying to investigate a report. I knew at that point weren't being above board because one of the companies on my credit report had gone spectacularly out of business during the 2008 financial crisis (Countrywide... Remember them?). This company was no longer responding to credit inquiries and yet, Experian failed to remove the offending entries. Now they are brazenly advertising a service for consumers to raise their credit score... Yes, the very same one they gatekeep. Fortunately, I have no use for credit any more.
- cutler 4y agoExperian should be illegal under GDPR. It operates without the user/victim's consent and the victim has zero rights over the data collected, much of which can have a drastic effect on the victim's life. I can't believe Experian exists.
- mindslight 4y agoThis framework is spot on. The US desperately needs privacy legislation like the GDPR, or the surveillance industry will go right on building their de-facto government that is utterly unaccountable.
- NickNameNick 4y agoGiven how many people seem to have trouble correcting errors in the records, I have to wonder what the threshold would be for just sueing them. It seems like you could make good arguments for libel and tortious interference.
- throwaway742 4y agoThere's also the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
- robertlagrant 4y ago> It operates without the user/victim's consent and the victim has zero rights over the data collected This may be trickier to demonstrate than you might think. It could be that every credit card you use has Experian as a data processor, and that the only way to disengage is to stop using the credit card.
- julienb_sea 4y agoWell technically you do consent to sharing your information with reporting agencies every time you interact with a lender or issuer. I realize this is a technicality as we are essentially forced to do this in order to interact with the US primary financial system. It's probably worth pointing out the alternative to centralized, reasonably deterministic credit reporting is basically hard dings (e.g. known missed payments) & bank statements and income. This locks credit availability even more directly to your wealth and income position. Credit reports, at least, are a broader model of behavior whose inputs are well understood and relatively easy to track with free apps like Credit Karma & other competitors.
- time4tea 4y agoHilarious that this is posted on a site - tumblr - that itself is full of dark pattern garbage. "Open in app" whizzing about "I love tracking cookies" over half the screen.
- sdfhbdf 4y agodifference being that you use tumblr mostly for entertainment and credit score is something everybody needs to be on top of.
- nimbius 4y agotrue story: the last Harley Davidson i bought after I made Journeyman was financed through H-D Financing because in the 21st century vehicle companies are just thinly veiled loan companies. During the sit-down with the moneyman he grunted a few times looking at Experian and Equifax before flipping the screen to me and asking to pull up my FICO score instead from my credit card company. it took ten seconds and i got approved for a pretty good rate. When I asked what happened he said Experian says no to anything without the last name Rockefeller, and Equifax can never find anyone before it crashes.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y agoI hope you used your own computing device to log into the credit card lender's site...
- urthor 4y ago[flagged]
- narrowtux 4y agoYou can't tell me they are on the same level. I'm infuriated just reading all the issues people have with this experian service.
- flaviut 4y agoI filed a complaint with the CFPB about exactly this last year: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/detail/5699763 https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-compl... Their response was: 1. a notice that they needed more time to handle my complaint, and then on the deadline to respond 2. 650 words that can be summarized as a) "Experian Consumer Services" is not the same as Experian, the credit reporting agency b) The terms of service allow Experian Consumer Services to do what they want c) You are already unsubscribed from emails from our partners Regardless, I'd suggest everyone else affected by this issue file a complaint as well. At the very least, these complaints are not cheap to process.
- atlasunshrugged 4y agoThe FTC is also increasingly looking into dark patterns and is at least fining people for them, maybe worth submitting there as well as the Stanford Dark Patterns Tip Line so it gets more notoriety https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ https://darkpatternstipline.org/ https://darkpatternstipline.org/
- orangepurple 4y agoKeep hammering the complaints lines. The entities are inextricably linked and eventually someone will see it that way too.
- joering2 4y agoYes there are not cheap to process. And those who pay for Experian data will push eventual rise on their customers, sadly.
- ramesh31 4y agoAll of the credit rating agencies suck. But that being said, Experian is the only one that actually matters. And none of the free credit monitoring services have their data. IMHO their app is a necessary evil to know where your credit truly stands, and I don't mind using it for that.
- nerpderp82 4y ago> Experian is the only one that actually matters. Why?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ramesh31 4y ago>Why? It's what practically all major lenders look at. Some of the lower tier credit card issuers will look at Transunion/Equifax, as well as landlords etc. because they're cheaper to pull. But anything serious like a mortgage or personal loan comes down to your Experian score.
- 0xcde4c3db 4y agoThis seems like a remarkably similar pattern to Intuit trying to hide its Free File services and take every possible opportunity to funnel people into paid versions of TurboTax (I think Intuit later withdrew from the Free File program, but was one of the key companies that originally lobbied for it, presumably to stop the IRS from pursuing an in-house solution) [1]. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
- atlasunshrugged 4y agoAlthough interestingly the FTC did go after Intuit for the Free File calling their practices deceptive! https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/03/ftc-sues-intuit-its-deceptive-turbotax-free-filing-campaign https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/03/...
- user3939382 4y agoWhy are the CRAs private? Even from a libertarian perspective — you have all the inefficiencies and abuses that are created by lack of choice, but without the oversight you’d get as a government function. It’s the worst of both worlds.
- r3trohack3r 4y agoMy initial reaction to a nationalized CRA is that I’m not 100% sure I trust my government to decide what services I’m eligible for in society. I don’t trust it to not start merging over with the surveillance and police state. Imagine your cell phone pinging a nearby tower during a protest and losing the ability to open a line of credit.
- epgui 4y agoSpeaking of “dark pattern garbage” (although I’m sure it’s unintentional), I can’t escape from that page by hitting the back button on mobile Safari.
- Havoc 4y agoThank goodness credit scores are mostly useless in the UK.
- chainwax 4y agoI actually used Experian lately. I was a prospective tenant of an apartment and the landlord wanted a credit report. It seems that no one really cares about it being a full-hard-hit report anymore, at least for these sorts of things, but they _did_ want more than a screenshot of my FICO score from my bank app. Experian's PDF version of my FICO score looked very official, and I got the apartment. It's harder than I thought to get both my FICO score and my name on the same page/screenshot.
- cyanydeez 4y agoIf someone figures out how to do a secure MITM attack on sites like these, that's a valuable service. Cause this is the future of all well meaning laws.
- doodlebugging 4y agoHow do we destroy their business model?
- CatWChainsaw 4y agoMaking holding the data more expensive that any revenue gained from selling "insights" of the data.
- doodlebugging 4y agoI like this. I was thinking of disconnecting identity from transactions but I am not sure that is technically feasible without introducing anonymizing middlemen functions who know can verify and transfer the funds without releasing info about originating account holder. Pipe dream probably.
- CatWChainsaw 4y agoMiddlemen would likely sell to the companies or be puppets from the outset.
- mox1 4y agoTrick for those looking to unfreeze but dont want to create an account. Do it by phone. As long as you have your freeze pin its automated and takes 1-3 mins. No account needed. Did it last week.
- hedora 4y agoExperian stole our credit card number about 15 years ago. When I called the credit card company to issue a chargeback, the customer service rep said that over half their calls were about unauthorized charges from Experian, and that the credit card company had established a special flow to block the fraudulent charges (instead of changing the credit card number). From what I can tell, if they were in literally any other line of business, they would be blocked by all financial institutions.
- charles_f 4y agoThere's no limit on the outrage one can feel about that, the worst being the absolute absence of accountability from these credit bureaus, and the lack of recourse against these. They carry on handling your data like it's theirs, occasionally giving your social identity to hackers without so much as a "woopsy". You can't just switch, and you need them if you ever want to do something super crazy like buying a house, a car, or background check for a job. You know for a fact that nothing will ever happen to them until society crumbles altogether. It's hard feeling so powerless.
- htag 4y agoBuying a house/car or getting a job is something that happens everyday without anyone consulting Experian. If you don't like Experian then don't do business with people that use Experian.
- tristor 4y ago> If you don't like Experian then don't do business with people that use Experian. Yeah… that’s not how that works. Generally: 1. You have no idea in advance what credit reporting agencies the lender or employer will use. 2. Even if you know, you’re now fighting two kafkaesque bureaucracies at once instead of just one. Enjoy that. 3. The consequences are life-altering. 4. For mortgages it’s often required to query all three credit reporting agencies. 5. If you make known your issue, most lenders take it as a sign you aren’t credit-worthy 6. All three agencies are huge sacks of shit. There’s no ethical reason to object to Experian but not to the others. They’re all utterly horrid in effectively every aspect. 7. It is literally impossible to opt out of your information being stored and disseminated by the credit reporting agencies, and their business is legally protected.
- barbazoo 4y agoImagine working on these features that exist exclusively for tricking people into spending more money. All the way from leadership, product management, development, testing, ... You must be super disconnected from what goes on at work I imagine.
- the-mitr 4y agoIt is not a bug, it is a feature
- IG_Semmelweiss 4y agoI actually reported to https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ By copy pasting selectively, pieces of the post by benton.io.
- efitz 4y agoMany of us are software engineers of some sort. Why do we (and our colleagues) participate in this kind of dark pattern BS? Just don’t write the code. Yes maybe they will fire you but you can threaten to go public with your side of the story. Sooner or later sleazebags who push this sort of stuff will get the message.
- bluefirebrand 4y agoWe like being paid too much. There is always another dev who likes being paid more than bring moral.
- ahepp 4y agoI got this email from Citi recently: > Hi Andrew. We review communication preferences periodically and noticed you‘ve opted to only receive account related communications. A quick update can give you access to additional information about products and services, as well as special offers available to you. Click “Get Started” to update your email preference settings for: XXXXX. If you‘re satisfied with your current settings, no action is required. Of course I'm satisfied with my current settings. That's why I went out of my way to set them. Don't send me spam mail asking me to sign up for more spam mail. I'm not sure how I could possibly have made it more clear that I only want to receive account related communications? And yet they intentionally violate that, just to ask me to sign up for more emails I already told them I didn't want.
- raybb 4y agoI know we shouldn't have to do this but I've been quite happy with gmailctl tool to manage filters via cli. So nice to send all future mail from a place to some label and out of my inbox with using the awful GUI.
- cosmotic 4y ago"We", "noticed"
- hunter2_ 4y agoSomewhat similarly, I've noticed a major uptick in the last few years of email messages from places I do business with (including banks), that have no "unsubscribe" or "manage preferences" link at the bottom, instead usually having verbiage to the effect of "you shall receive these communications until we part ways" (which technically is in agreement with CAN SPAM, I think) where the content is entirely non-transactional. Not about something I did, not a periodic account statement, nothing like that. Just informational garbage like how to be aware of scams. I'm totally fine with this sort of email upon opening an account, or if a policy changes, or maybe even annually. But I'm talking about a deluge of this crap, from all sorts of companies I otherwise enjoy doing business with.
- cobertos 4y ago
- colordrops 4y agoBrian Cassin [1] is the guy you want to call out and embarrass. The buck at Experian stops at him. [1] https://www.experianplc.com/about-us/board-and-senior-management/board-of-directors/brian-cassin/ https://www.experianplc.com/about-us/board-and-senior-manage...
- dools 4y agoWhat I find weird is this: People talk about China's social credit system as some sort of dystopian nightmare. But we have a credit system in western democracies that is run by private for profit companies, that disproportionately punishes poor people through negatively compounding outcomes. How is that less dystopian!?
- hydrox24 4y agoIt's a night and day difference, because the credit system is only related to your ability to repay debts. It is neutral to, and cannot be easily and directly cooped for Government control of personal behaviour, morality, and relationships. It is not a tool of total social control. And it is not centralised to the same entity that has a monopoly on force.
- uoaei 4y agoCan you explain more exactly how the CCP's version achieves "total social control"? I have seen many examples of Chinese people acting in ways that are not congruent with the CCP's morality.
- TheDong 4y ago> the credit system is only related to your ability to repay debts. Your credit _score_ is only related to a subset of your ability to pay debts. The US credit system is related to far more things, including housing and jobs. I, as a person who made a software engineer salary, but never had a credit card or student loans or any other debt, have been bounced by credit checks due to not having a credit score. That means some apartments won't rent to me, buying a house or car is harder, etc. I haven't personally had any job issues from it, but it's entirely legal in the US for a potential employer to reject job applicants or rescind offers based on credit check result. The fact that a private company controls my ability to rent apartments due to this dumb system actually feels far worse to me than if the government controlled it. If the government did, they could at least know that I'd paid my bills on time for years, and had sufficient salary to obviously pay for that apartment. > And it is not centralised to the same entity that has a monopoly on force. How is that a good thing? We already have given the government a monopoly on force, so they already have unrestricted power over our lives... why does then giving another unrelated private company _more_ power seem better? Since the government already has 100% power over whether you go to jail or not, them also being able to say you're a good or bad debtor seems better since it doesn't give them any additional power, just a more fine-grained way to use their power. > [all that other stuff] Does china actually do any of that? None of the things you listed sound very concrete, to say the least.
- theK 4y agoThis is what maddens me the most about the TradFi space. Everything is supposedly regulated but in the end the b2c companies will keep doing whatever they want. At least serious DeFi gives you a quantum of sovereignty! Sure many will say: “but look at all those crypto grifters!”. But if you aren’t completely consumed by greed it is child’s play to separate the wheat from the chaff.
- Reason077 4y agoHmm, what's this note all about, from the bottom of the side-bar in the linked article? "EDIT: I’ve restored this version now that I’ve figured out Other Methods to dissuade Hacker News. I remain trans and hating you, orange site."
- 123pie123 4y agoThere was a great website /game where by you had to avoid all the dark patterns to pass the level - anyone remember this and have the link? I've search and can't find it
- consultSKI 4y agoAll three "services" are bought dogs. Only MUCH worse than the BBB.
- andrei_says_ 4y agoWondering what it would take to open source credit reporting? What are the blockers to creating a nonprofit servicing this need? Similar to how LetsEncrypt disrupted the overpriced certificate market.
- TiredGuy 4y agoI'd love to hear an answer to this question from someone in the industry. Could it somehow be added to the Open Banking standards that are becoming widely adopted, or might it be introduced in a similar manner?
- mahdix 4y agoLong times ago, I tried to unsubscribe from their annoying emails and after a lot of back and forth with their CS, they asked me for my bank statement and last 3 years address. So, I just marked their emails as spam
- adultSwim 4y agoExperian has a range of data products. In the US, employers can buy the information in your credit report, without your approval or notification, just without the final score. Another Experian product is a database of images from license plate readers, tracking your driving.