7 ms·

Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns

• gfs 3y ago
  Credit reports are a racket. I've barely had any luck obtaining one of my reports from the site in the past few years. I'm at the point where I think I will freeze my credit.
  • davidjade 3y ago
    We’ve been living with credit freezes for over 10 years now, ever since a bunch of fraud incidents (thanks leaky IRS). Only ever have to deal with it when we need credit (rarely), putting in for a temporary lift. Bonus is we get zero refinance or CC offers in the mail.
  • JamesSwift 3y ago
    I recently had someone submit a fraudulent loan application using my information. I went through the process of freezing immediately after, and I would highly recommend you do it. It was the easiest thing possible. I just went to the links on here https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-freeze-credit https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-freeze-cre... and was done in like 10 minutes for all 3.
  • biftek 3y ago
    Everyone should freeze their credit by default, it's very easy to unfreeze when you actually need to apply for something.
    • alistairSH 3y ago
      Ideally, that would be the default state, and you'd request un unlock when you need to borrow money.
    • sidewndr46 3y ago
      I did that years ago and I've passed multiple hard credit checks. It doesn't do anything.
  • rufus_foreman 3y ago
    I applied for a credit card recently and got denied, which was weird since I have a good credit score. Applied for a different one, they eventually emailed and asked if I still wanted the card. When I said I did, they told me they needed me to unfreeze one of my credit reports. I had forgotten I did it years ago. Oops. I eventually got a snail mail from the first credit card company telling me that was why it was denied and to unfreeze it if I still wanted the card.
  • sidewndr46 3y ago
    I'm in my mid 30s at this point. Starting on my 18th birthday I've never been allowed to see my credit record from at least one bureau. Any attempt to do so is met with a requirement to prove my identity, and any attempt to prove my identity is responded to with a request for further documentation.
• toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Please raise a complaint with the FTC and CFPB. Regulators are the only path to success. https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/
• eek2121 3y ago
  Banks and data companies are moving to biometrics for proof of identity and you may have hit this. At least 3 credit card companies I use are signed up/using a biometrics/information provider. (they wouldn’t tell me who, despite federal disclosure requirements — I only knew they were using someone because my current accurate info was replaced by info from 7 years ago) There are companies trying very hard to find out everything from your hair color, facial features, and skin type to your email address and connect them all for everything from identity management to advertising. They are working on getting your payroll data directly from your employer as well, so you will not be able to self declare income in the future. You will know when you run across the companies that use these providers because their data is often wrong or out of date and they usually ask you for a video of yourself holding your id to update it and may even give you a problem then. The amount of information these companies are collecting and piecing together is scary — one company is tracking major website comment activity and tying it back to their core data sets which has your IRL info. This means that in the future, you could be denied employment, a mortgage, or an auto loan because of something you said last year in Twitter.
  • nicholasjarnold 3y ago
    It's literally out of control. We cannot have a healthy democracy in a systematically surveilled society. When people understand they're being actively and constantly surveilled they tend to self-censor their expression. When we do not have a healthy and honest exchange of expression (something that has arguably been being eroded for a long while now) it will fundamentally erode one of the pillars of our society. Kudos to CA and IL for attempting to do something about this legislatively. As a citizen with some modicum of hope for the future I will vote for strong privacy protections. As an engineer I will not work on products that progress our state of surveillance capitalism (yep, realize the constraints here). I hope others agree and act accordingly.
    • nickff 3y ago
      I’m not sure that these requirements are actually due to Surveillance Capitalism; Government KYC requirements may be the culprits, as they’re steadily on the rise (especially with all the recent sanctions).
• breadwinner 3y ago
  Remember, this is the company that could not keep the data they already have safe [1]. And now they want more info from you, so that they can store even more info about you (carelessly) and sell it? This is what happens when you have less regulation. [1] https://www.csoonline.com/article/567833/equifax-data-breach-faq-what-happened-who-was-affected-what-was-the-impact.html https://www.csoonline.com/article/567833/equifax-data-breach...
• olliej 3y ago
  I still love the whole "we know our data is wrong, but we sell it as fact, and know that that information is used to impact cost to you, but you're required to constantly check with us, or pay us to tell you when we're lying". Yet somehow this isn't extortion, and somehow it's not illegal defamation. The moment credit agencies started running their own monitoring services, it seemed like they were openly admitting that they were defaming people. I still do not understand why this is legal.
  • g051051 3y ago
    > The moment credit agencies started running their own monitoring services, it seemed like they were openly admitting that they were defaming people. I still do not understand why this is legal. If you're signed up for credit monitoring, you get notified when your credit info gets changed, so you have a chance to react if it's an error (or fraud). How is that defamation? Why would it be illegal?
    • olliej 3y ago
      No. It's defamation because they know their information is frequently incorrect, that it is trivial for people to get outright fraudulent transactions attached to people's "credit report". Knowing that, they then present that information as fact to others, despite knowing that the information they provided is used specifically for purposes where false information will add significant costs to the people they're reporting on. Now you're right, I can get credit monitoring, in which I pay money so that I can spend my time verifying they're not publishing fraudulent information. So now it goes from defamation to extortion: we'll defame you unless you pay us and do the work of ensuring we don't defame you.
      • g051051 3y ago
        They do not publish fraudulent data. They publish data provided by the credit grantors. If the credit grantors don't do their due diligence, that's on them, not the CRA. And if credit grantors fail to due that due diligence often enough, they get kicked out.
    • 3y ago
• dylan604 3y ago
  > confirmed identity by asking knowledge based questions I'm not sure I feel good about this either. Isn't your mother's maiden name, the street you grew up on, your first concert, or your pet's name all information that is pretty much well known by now. Primarily by you (royal) for taking those stupid social media quizzes.
  • jerhewet 3y ago
    I actually prefer this over the other currently available options (Install our app on your phone so you can click "Accept" ... and give us access to scrape everything off of your smartphone!). I just select random questions from their list, and use the same answer for each of the questions. If they don't accept the same answer for each question, then I conclude I don't need whatever it is they're offering as badly as they think I need it, and move on to another entity or form of communication (if you won't make this convenient for me, then fine -- you can send me snail mail correspondence).
    • dylan604 3y ago
      I used my password manager to fill in those questions with passwords, but that proved difficult when I had to provide the answer to the question over the phone to some rep.
    • MyFedora 3y ago
      > ... and give us access to scrape everything off of your smartphone! Deny them the access? Phones are way more restricted than home computers here. App stores also reject apps that insist on permissions that are out of their scope.
      • staplers 3y ago
        App stores also reject apps that insist on permissions that are out of their scope. Only for smaller apps. There are major apps that have unique integrations with app stores and consumer devices. Phone security/privacy is largely PR in this regard.
  • 3y ago
• thedanbob 3y ago
  It is mind-blowing to me how incompetent the credit agencies are. I just tried to check my credit was frozen everywhere and I couldn't log into Experian. Tried "forgot my password"... oops, "can't find your username". Tried entering my email, "please verify with your phone number"... oops, "doesn't match our records". Tried "verify another way" and it asked for my phone number and last 4 of my SSN. Hey, that worked! That should not be an option... And guess what, my account lists my username, email, and phone number exactly as I entered them. But I still can't change my password since that requires verifying my current password, which they've apparently forgotten. What an absolute joke.
  • SeanLuke 3y ago
    You are not their customer.
  • dawnerd 3y ago
    I'm completely blocked out of equifax ever since their hack. I've even sent them a certified letter and no response. Impossible to call them too. Just says sorry contact us... ok Been annoying when trying to have a credit check run and the place uses equifax and they deny based on frozen credit. Like ya, I know. Could be worse I suppose, could be open and unable to freeze.
    • toast0 3y ago
      Try opening a new account with a different email. Worked for me when I tried after going through the process.
  • jimt1234 3y ago
    I think it's the opposite of Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to stupidity/incompetence that which is adequately explained by malice/evil-intent.
    • CatWChainsaw 3y ago
      The original Hanlon's law is an excellent argument for why Reverse Hanlon's law is more often true. For another example, see every customer service phone tree in existence. Or more broadly, any customer service, although Google gets extra side-eye.
• arkadiyt 3y ago
  I continue to request my reports via certified mail to the annualcreditreport address, and this time for the first year Equifax just ... didn't reply. Completely ignored my request.
  • gottorf 3y ago
    Do you have your credit frozen with just Equifax, or something? Just trying to think of vanilla (i.e. incompetence rather than malice) reasons to explain this. Of course, it goes without saying that they all suck...
  • gzer0 3y ago
    Submit a complaint via the CFPB. They most certainly will then respond. I had a frustrating experience trying to obtain my consumer report from Early Warning Services, a less-known alternative to Chex Systems. Their process for requesting a report was unnecessarily complex and seemed designed to discourage users. Initially, I had to navigate to a hidden webpage, which then directed me to a PDF form. This step alone was convoluted. After filling out the form, I discovered a line within the PDF that provided a link to a consumer portal, which looked like it hadn't been updated since the early 2000s. The next step required me to create an account on this outdated portal, upload the completed PDF, and wait for a response. However, my troubles didn't end there. For reasons unknown to me, my account was suddenly deleted. When I reached out to their IT support for help, they were clueless about the reason behind this issue. Fed up with the lack of support and transparency, I decided to file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). To my surprise, this action prompted a swift response from Early Warning Services. Within just two days of filing the complaint, they sent me my consumer report.
• cheesemayo 3y ago
  Giving them the benefit of a doubt, it could be a first (or half) step in adding a level of security around credit information. It wasn't long ago that they were breached (not though user identity checking! by a software vuln!) and they're probably still smarting from it. Maybe this is part of a half-baked auth scheme or notification system.
• dheera 3y ago
  They already have your mobile phone number because banks and credit lines you take will report that information to them. They ask you for your phone number to verify you, not because they want your phone number when they already have it. If you want to avoid them knowing your "real" phone number and leaking that to marketing agencies, the best thing you can do is get 2 mobile phone numbers, one you actually use with your friends and family, and one you provide to businesses and stick that SIM in a beater phone and keep it silent. I HATE this system and wish we had some GDPR-like law for preventing sharing of such information outside the corporation you provide it to, but such is the current state of the system in the US.
• Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  I just stick with Credit Karma for keeping up with my credit report. Yeah, they want to sell me loans and shit, but it's easy to ignore/block those ads and just get the data I'm looking for.
• vegetablepotpie 3y ago
  The problem is, as you articulated, they are required by law to provide credit reporting information about you to you. They have no incentive to do this because they make their money by collecting and selling data about us. They have every reason to use this reporting requirement to collect more information about you. They have every reason to conflate credit freeze with credit hold, and confuse consumers in order to extract regular payments from them. They have zero reason to keep sensitive data about you secure. In fact, they have every reason to promote fear and uncertainty in the public that their sensitive personal information is in the hands of criminals as a growth opportunity for their industry to sell credit monitoring services. They have successfully convinced the public that identity theft is a separate and distinct crime done exclusively by one person to another rather than simply fraud that they are aiding and abetting. Consumers and credit reporting bureaus have a fundamentally adversarial relationship that no legislation can harmonize. They exist because they do serve a purpose for finance, which is to give an indication of how much money they can make lending money to someone. Regardless, this reporting does not have to be done by for-profit corporations. This can just as easily be done by non-profits or government agencies. Although these are not perfect, they are free of the perverse incentives driven by for profit corporate structures.
  • cheriot 3y ago
    100% agree on the incentives Similar to why cookie accept/deny interfaces are atrocious. They're intended to be! I think a solution will require more creativity than "have the government do it", but the current system is clearly broken.
    • para_parolu 3y ago
      I don’t think government should do it at all. That would be same broken thing. I just don’t want a selected (not by me) set of companies collect information about me without my consent. I would rather have an opt-in system where I can select a vendor to make a report on me to provide to lender. Only when I want it.
      • WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
• motohagiography 3y ago
  Their continued existence is pernicious and a policy failure. We should be able to replace them with a competitive privacy preserving scheme that wipes those businesses out.
• jimt1234 3y ago
  Quit complaining. If your personal data is leaked, and your credit and financial life is ruined, at least you get a year of free credit monitoring. Sheesh. /s
• soared 3y ago
  This is most likely why https://unifiedid.com/ https://unifiedid.com/
• hellotomyrars 3y ago
  I haven’t had issues with the annual credit report process personally. The system is shitty though. Equifax will give you a copy off your real credit report once per month if you sign up with them which is better than the other two will do. The rub though is they try as hard as possible to make you think you have to pay for it and every time you sign in you have to decline to pay. It’s so fucked up. If we’re going to have our lives controlled by credit agencies, then individuals should be able to access their real score at any time for no cost and no bullshit. What a fucking racket.
• paws 3y ago
  It's possible to opt out of the TheWorkNumber [0] by postal mail. You might consider it. [1] [0] https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze [1] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/11/how-to-opt-out-of-equifax-revealing-your-salary-history/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/11/how-to-opt-out-of-equifa...
  • jackson1442 3y ago
    Highly recommend doing this - also if you think your employer is reporting data to The Work Number (highly probably if they use ADP), ask them for information on your employee profile. Equifax has lied to me about the existence of my profile even though they did, in fact, have data on me. Only when my employer told me the identifiers for my profile did I find out that they had previous data on me and I was able to opt-out.
• captn3m0 3y ago
  I found a security issue in the credit reports Equifax India sends out. Been trying to report it for almost a year now I think. Equifax doesn’t care.
• 29athrowaway 3y ago
  Equifax is the only company ridiculed in political satire shows with full length episodes due to their inept information security practices.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  You tried methods #1 and #2. Stamps are expensive but the effectiveness of method #3 might surprise you. The mail-in form is not going to ask for a voice sample. From consumerfinance.gov: "You can request and review your free report through one of the following ways: 1. Online: Visit AnnualCreditReport.com 2. Phone: Call (877) 322-8228 3. Mail: Download and complete the Annual Credit Report Request form. Mail the completed form to: Annual Credit Report Request Service P.O. Box 105281 Atlanta, GA 30348-5281 You can request all three reports at once or you can order one report at a time. By requesting the reports separately (for example, one every four months) you can monitor your credit report throughout the year."
  • atrettel 3y ago
    In my experience, requesting the reports in the mail is the only guaranteed way that I can get my full credit reports. The website sometimes works, but I often get an error for my Experian report that says that "A condition exists that prevents Experian from being able to accept your request at this time." It turns out that Experian never lets me get my annual free credit report using Firefox, but if I try it with Chrome, I can get it. This is the only workaround I've found when the website won't give you your report. The only other option is to just mail in the form and wait a few weeks (which is what I often end up doing anyway).
• alberto4151 3y ago
  [flagged]
• caleparsons 3y ago
  [dead]