
Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You - darwhy
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-reports/
======
code4tee
All very good advice.

The bit about calmly but methodically collecting a paper trail and then
reading it back to them is excellent advice for any out of control
bureaucracy. Such entities can handle angry irate people all day long, but a
calm and collected person that posses ample evidence of documented screw ups
and potential illegalities is a bureaucracy's worst nightmare.

~~~
thecrazyone
This puts things in perspective.

I used to get angry when the other party used to screw up, have stopped
getting angry seeing how futile getting angry at a random (and ever changing)
customer rep is.

This puts calmness in a new perspective

------
phant0mas
I see the same thing with all my family and friends. Whenever they have to do
something that involves bureaucracy, they give up and/or start shouting.
Especially in Greece, where the public sector and the banks depend on you
giving up.

Personally I always make sure to go fully prepared, with every legal paper
ready before hand, and having ready answers/solution for every possible issue.
And above all else I talk as polite as I possibly can, showing respect and
making sure I am asking clear and direct questions. And I always double check
their answers. As a result I always get my job done.

Funny story: I once needed a signature from the tax office director. While I
was at her office and she was taking quite some time to check every thing,
looking for something wrong to send me away, her phone rang. The house next to
hers caught on fire. She started search for the fire departments phone number
and she couldn't find it. Luckily I had my phone with me, googled it really
fast and told her the number. Got the paper signed in a instant after that.

~~~
thecrazyone
I feel sad every time I hear things like this. That we've to be happy that we
got our job done even when all our documents are in the clear. Or that we've
to hope get some favor from them by fawning (not alleging that you did that).
It makes me feel like we're treated like dumb children by our governments.

~~~
foxyv
> It makes me feel like we're treated like dumb children by our governments.

Bingo.

------
mistersquid
The kalzumeus.com article is informative and accessible, especially if your
identity has been stolen.

If your identity has not yet been stolen, the NYTimes has an article titled
"Equifax's Instructions Are Confusing. Here's What to Do Now." [0]

tl;dr: Freeze requests for your credit data at the big 3: Equifax [1],
Experian [2], and Transunion [3].

(Note: these services may require multiple attempts, some persistence, a
service fee, or a phone call to an automated system. YMMV.)

    
    
      [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/your-money/identity-theft/equifaxs-instructions-are-confusing-heres-what-to-do-now.html
      [1] https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp
      [2] https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
      [3] https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze
    

EDIT: missing word

~~~
stretchwithme
Very useful links. Thanks.

I'd like to know how I can determine what services have such a hold in place
for me.

This is all pretty absurd. Why should we have to pay to not have our credit
history disclosed? We should pay when we want to have it disclosed.

Then I would have to pay THREE different companies to not disclose it. Or keep
track of which ones won't disclose it.

The European model of you owning your own information is making more and more
sense.

~~~
knicholes
It sounds like extortion to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the data leak was
an intentional move to provide incentive to people to sign up for their credit
monitoring services or unfreeze fees.

~~~
chrsstrm
When a company "pulls" your credit they are not given the report for free.
Equifax and the like sell a credit reporting service to banks and other
companies who would want to see your credit history. When you freeze your
report, reporting agencies are not allowed to sell your report to anyone, at
your request, meaning they are losing revenue. The freeze fee makes sense when
you realize your report is the product they are selling. "You're not allowing
us to make money? Fine, then you need to help make up the difference with a
fee." Just like stockbrokers, they are intent on making money both coming and
going.

~~~
stretchwithme
Maybe what we need is an open source blockchain application that keeps track
of every event in your credit history, with YOU authorizing every view.

Every time you use credit, you'd be authorizing that creditor to add events to
the records for that use, until they mark it paid off. Otherwise, nothing else
gets into your history. And you'd be able to comment on any of those events,
of course.

~~~
stretchwithme
Of course, it would also need to support multi factor authentication and keep
all data related to that secure. Might be hard to do that, but seems pretty
hard in the existing industry.

------
uiri
_I am a shareholder in BigBank. I was therefore profoundly displeased when I
learned..._

This is amazing. It is also trivially true for anyone who holds an S&P 500
index fund or similar when dealing with American Express, Bank of America,
Capital One, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, US Bancorp, and Wells Fargo among a
few others.

~~~
anitil
I didn't understand how smart it was until I read your comment!

------
aptwebapps
If I saw a new account opened in my name I would be pretty concerned and would
probably come back to this post for advice. However, is it necessary to get be
this thorough (going to the police, etc) for things like incorrect tradelines
in your report?

When I first requested my free reports a few years ago all three had multiple
tradelines that were not mine and two had a similar situation as Patrick's -
namely an account older than me. I used the CRAs' online forms to request they
fix them and they did within a few weeks. Didn't seem like that big of a deal.

~~~
squeaky-clean
It helps you in the worst case scenario. What would you have done had they
never responded or taken any action? Or if they responded with incorrect
information / misunderstanding the original claim like they did in the article
thinking OP was talking about their child's birthdate, when OP was clearly
talking about themselves?

It's a relatively small price and additional amount of effort to protect you
in a situation that can be very important to you financially for a long time.
What if 20 years from now those accounts are reopened in some credit report?

Also just anecdotally, but I bank with Chase and their customer service has
always been so terrible, I'd expect all these to happen to me.

~~~
aptwebapps
A paper trail is good, of course, but IIRC, I did receive amended reports from
each of the CRAs with letters describing the actions taken.

I also suspect that I went through the process more recently than Patrick, I
think it was about five years ago. In my case, I was able to select the
problematic accounts, what the problems were, and the desired actions all via
dropdown elements. There was an additional text box for any extra explanation.
This is what made it seem routine and not a big deal.

------
readams
The FTC has a site with a lot of helpful information on helping you resolve
identity theft, and even will help generate the correct documentation and
direct you through the maze.
[https://www.identitytheft.gov](https://www.identitytheft.gov)

Note the it is literally the business of credit agencies to blithely ruin
lives so they will be very unhelpful if they can.

~~~
JoBrad
Huge differences in quality between your first and second paragraphs. It is
the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness.
They prosper when more people are in the credit pool and are able to take out
loans.

~~~
yardie
> It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit
> worthiness.

Please, the dogma they preach they might as well be a religion. * Where you
live affects your credit worthiness.

* How long you live there affects your credit worthiness.

* The title of your job affects your credit worthiness.

* Marital status affects your credit worthiness.

* The degree and school you attended affects your credit worthiness.

* How long you have a bank account affects your credit worthiness.

I haven't even touched on the credit part of credit worthiness, yet.

And I know this as these are the bullshit questions I had to answer while
we're trying to purchase a home.

~~~
patio11
Do you live in the United States? In the United States:

 _Where you live affects your credit worthiness._

Illegal, and radioactively so. The practice was called redlining and a bank
engaging in it would have hellfire rained upon it.

 _Marital status affects your credit worthiness._

Also illegal.

 _The degree and school you attended affects your credit worthiness._

Untrue; credit reports don't include this information. (It is available from
specialized vendors for doing things like e.g. verifying resumes, but banks
don't habitually employ them because your credit history is much, much more
reliable.)

 _The title of your job affects your credit worthiness._

Untrue; titles are generally not reported to CRAs, difficult to get out of
customers, and difficult to verify. If you wanted to use them in underwriting,
for the same amount of effort you can just ask "What is your salary?" and
verify it with the employer the same way you'd verify their title; this gets
you everything you want in a more reliable fashion, since salary inflation is
less common than title inflation.

~~~
yardie
> Do you live in the United States?

Yes, we moved here after 15 years of living abroad.

> Marital status affects your credit worthiness.

They asked for this information.

To paraphrase our mortgage broker, "having a 4 year degree makes you much more
creditworthy." And I just confirmed it with a family member who works in
Fannie Mae, says it's true.

Have you looked at a 1003/residentialloan application lately? You and I both
agree they shouldn't be asking these questions but those questions are on the
application.

~~~
mahyarm
What a credit agency retains on you and what a bank asks from you in a loan
application are two different things.

------
sailfast
This is quite a useful write-up and I love the way it's written. Thank you.

If you are in the United States you also have an option to file a complaint
with their government regulator. Consumer Financial protections bureau has a
complaint form prominently featured on their website, as does the FTC for non-
financial parts. Believe FDIC does for banks as well. Worth a shot and
establishes a paper trail quickly!

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Also, find your state financial regulator. Mine is the New York Department of
Financial Services and they have teeth.

~~~
eropple
This is one of the undersold advantages of living in states that care about
the decent behavior of corporations operating in their states. It's very
_expensive_ to screw people over in them, and so you are more resistant--not
immune, of course--to many types of nasty behavior on their part.

------
smoll
I enjoyed reading this. Question for patio11 or others more knowledgeable
about this - could a chatbot similar to the one being used to fight traffic
tickets be useful in keeping a paper trail and putting the fear of god into
banks/CRAs when this happens? Because why not automate this, especially for
people who aren't as articulate/level-headed/organized, who might otherwise
bungle it?

~~~
patio11
Decision trees for interpretation of the law are _fraught_ ; talk to a lawyer
about where the line is.

The reason for not automating communications is in the post. The CRAs have
carte blanche to straight-up ignore anything which they think comes from an
automated process or a firm/organization specializing in helping people with
their credit.

Could you potentially automate some of the record keeping? Possibly. Could you
automate the sending of paper? Certainly. Automating the receipt of paper is
tricky since, for all the predictable reasons, someone last living at 123
Maple St will have a lot of difficulty telling the bank or CRA to mail them at
1234 Commercial Parkway Suite 666 to discuss their credit. (You can do it, and
I have done it, but expect to be put through some identity verification
hoops.)

------
tylercubell
The CFPB should definitely be added to the list of lawyer alternatives. I had
a minor issue with a bank and filing a complaint with the CFPB got it quickly
resolved whereas my state's consumer protection division didn't even bother
writing back.

------
ajb
"Do not sign up for credit monitoring; it is a great revenue source for credit
reporting agencies but almost never a good purchase for consumers."

Further to this, UK customers can get free access to their Equifax credit
report via Clearscore.com anyway. And the experian one via moneysavingexpert
credit club.

------
trishume
When I grow up, I want to be a Dangerous Professional.

~~~
lisper
Why wait? You can be a Dangerous Professional at any age. Being able to remain
calm in emotional situations is a huge lever in many situations, not just when
dealing with bureaucracies. It's almost like a super power. I recommend it.

------
seanalltogether
Does anyone know what I can do as an US citizen abroad to protect myself now?
I tried to get a free copy of my credit report but it required a us address to
process. I tried to set up an account to freeze my credit but those require a
us address as well.

~~~
tombrossman
No idea, but I asked the same thing on the expats Stack Exchange site earlier
today[0]. No responses yet, maybe we have to wait until Monday and call them?
You might also contact the US Embassy in your country and ask.

I had a similar problem with signing up for an online "my Social Security"
account, and learned that it is impossible. The US Embassy in London wrote
back: _" You must have a U.S. mailing address in order to create a my Social
Security account and cannot open an account without one."_

Having a credit record in the USA is no longer important as I do not plan to
return, but you would think the credit reporting agencies should have some way
of telling them "I'm long gone, if you see a credit application from the USA
it's definitely fraudulent". Can't be done I guess.

[0][https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/12104/how-
ca...](https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/12104/how-can-us-
citizens-living-overseas-freeze-their-credit)

~~~
seanalltogether
Thanks I'll keep my eye on that question. Like you I probably won't care about
my credit back home for the next decade or so but I don't know if I'll move
back in the future.

------
jimbobimbo
Excellent post!

I've mailed and emailed CxOs and VPs in the past (not for bank/credit related
matters), whenever company's support utterly failed me. Doing this gives a
much needed kick in the pants to the bureaucratic machine, which gotten stuck
in gear.

------
lifeisstillgood
Just a thank you to patio11 - I got a phone call from a debt collector
yesterday, over something I thought I had finally persuaded the original owner
was incorrect. (Mobile phone bill iymk)

I was going to call them Monday, but of course, now I will write :-)

------
SnowingXIV
This is good advice I think in general working with most CS groups. I'm taking
this to heart right now in a completely different setting. I'm close to
becoming heated but I realize that's not going to help anything.

Unfortunately, I've recently had our business credit card blocked from
Facebook Advertising after a year of use without warning. Potentially
suspending on going campaigns. On Thursday it was removed without my knowledge
and was unable to be readded. There is no call center or email at Facebook to
reach out to. You're the mercy of their overloaded support inbox system. No
matter how much you spend. It's now Saturday and I am receiving multiple calls
a day from owner's asking if it's been resolved. I have no recourse aside from
praying that I get a response and a correction done.

------
astral303
"Angry people demand; professionals “require.” "

YES YES YES--it's not enough to merely be aware of the connotations of your
words. You must also be aware of any unintended information conveyed through
their use.

For example, despite being synonyms, the use of the word "demand" in this
context exposes one as an amateur. It doesn't matter if you think this is
unfair. It matters that you know all information conveyed, directly or
indirectly.

(This is incredibly good writing! Great business writing exhibits the
characteristics of great code: as simple as possible but no simpler, and
unambiguous. Reading this post is worth your time just for the chance to see
an example of a relentlessly relevant post.)

~~~
Cederfjard
Sorry, I know this is very minor and beside the point (ironic, given what you
just said about relevance), but isn't that exactly what connotation means?

>a : the suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing it explicitly
names or describes⁰

Or is this perhaps even more meta than that - the choice itself can convey
something apart from the semantics of a word, and this isn't something that
the word connotation covers?

My apologies for sidetracking, you just got me wondering. I'm neither a native
speaker nor a linguist, so it's tricky for me to think about these things
sometimes. I agree with what you're saying, by the way.

[0] [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/connotation](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/connotation)

~~~
patio11
The word connotation is typically used to describe inferences that you'd make
about a statement given the word used which are widely available to native
speakers of that language. Thin, skinny, and gaunt all mean the same thing;
only "gaunt" has the connotation that the person described necessarily has a
problem.

The other poster is describing something a bit more meta than what the word
connotation typically covers. They are describing something akin to a
shibboleth, a great linguistics word. One's use of a shibboleth is an (often
very quiet) signal of membership in an in-group. (c.f. usage #2 here:
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shibboleth](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/shibboleth) )

An example: if someone steals your credit card, and you call your bank to
report that, you could describe your requested action as either "opening a
dispute" or "filing a chargeback." These are functionally equivalent but
saying "chargeback" suggests that you're likely rather sophisticated about the
mechanics of credit cards relative to most well-educated people.

~~~
lsc
Isn't this what semiotics[1] is all about? The difference between connotations
and denotations?

My parents were really into that sort of thing "Words have power" \- So during
my 'bratty teenager' phase, I standardized on the word with the most negative
denotation that had the correct connotation in my speech. I still do it
sometimes, as a joke, but it's... funny, because while I have the feeling that
the connotation is somehow less important than the denotation, and when I do
the above, I'm attempting to point that out, nobody else seems to see it that
way. To 'hire someone profitably' is a dramatically different thing, in most
minds, than to 'exploit someone', even though the two words have an identical
denotation.

I used to see my lack of understanding here as a sign of how most people
cannot see past their own emotions; I now see my lack of understanding as a
sign of how I am not in touch with emotions in a fully human sort of way.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics)

~~~
Retric
Connotations are not meaningless. It's a question of redundancy when encoding
information and should be treated like a checksum.

------
andrewhillman
"These days they have streamlined online applications for writing to them, but
I suggest that you only send them paper letters. This is a really weird thing
for a technologist to suggest, but when you send paper letters, you can
establish and own a “paper trail.” When you type words into their godawful web
applications and hit submit, you will likely fail to retain a copy of those
words and fail to retain records about what they told you (exactly) and when.
This will complicate your resolution with them. Communicate with them only
over postal mail. Keep a log of every mail you send (including what you said)
and when it was sent; keep a copy of every letter they send to you and when it
was sent. You don’t need physical copies; digital is fine. I like organizing
all of mine on a per-incident basis in Dropbox."

YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SEND LETTERS WITH 'USPS RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED.' (It's the
green card you get at the post office and once the recipient receives your
letter, you will get a green card in the mail serving as proof of delivery and
acceptance.) This is the lowest costing form of legal proof for a paper trail.
Well worth it. I use it all the time and I learned this from my dad who has
spent his life practicing law.

~~~
dctoedt
> _YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SEND LETTERS WITH 'USPS RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED.' (It's
> the green card you get at the post office and once the recipient receives
> your letter, you will get a green card in the mail serving as proof of
> delivery and acceptance.) _

Also: 1) Get the actual green-card form beforehand; 2) type the green-card
serial number above the inside address of the letter; and 3) keep a photocopy.
Otherwise the recipient could claim that the signed green card, confirming
receipt of the mailing, was for some other letter, not the one you sent. As a
baby lawyer filling in for a more-senior associate at a court hearing, I had
an opposing counsel make just such a claim to a judge; the judge gave the
opposing counsel the benefit of the doubt. (The opposing counsel was later
disbarred for unrelated reasons.)

Example of such an inside address:

\--begin--

    
    
       VIA CERTIFIED MAIL NO. 123456789
    
       Evil Corporation
       9876 Main Street
       Anytown, Anystate  54321-9876
    
       Attention: Department of Fobbing People Off
    
       To whom it may concern:
    
       [etc.]
    

\--end--

~~~
LurkersWillLurk
Is the date that the green card was bought recorded by USPS? Basically, how
exactly does writing the tracking number within the letter prove that the
letter was mailed with that envelope?

~~~
dredmorbius
Under civil law in the United States, the legal burden is not "irrefutable
proof", but "preponderance of evidence".

If you produce copies of a letter with a given return receipt number indicated
on it, the return receipt stub, and the received receipt, and the opposing
party claims that "this could have been faked", then, unless your credibility
is otherwise impeached, _you have established a preponderance of evidence for
your claim._

------
milkytron
> Mean words cannot hurt a bank. Threats cannot hurt a bank. Paper trails,
> though, are terrifying to regulated institutions. Your bank’s customer
> support representatives are taught to evaluate whether someone looks like
> they’re competent and collecting a paper trail. If they are, the CS rep is
> supposed to stop touching the case immediately and instead escalate them to
> a supervisor or to the legal department.

This is why I record every single one of my phone calls. I've recorded lies
over the phone (without knowing they were lying at the time) and then played
them back to another customer service rep to prove how I was deceived. I was
immediately escalated as the author says and could feel how the evidence gave
me power in the situation.

Edit: I'm not suggesting anyone break the law. If you're going to record phone
calls, know your laws and get consent if necessary. This document which was
last updated 3/10/2017 may be of help [https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/03/LAWS-ON-R...](https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/03/LAWS-ON-RECORDING-CONVERSATIONS-CHART.pdf)

~~~
patio11
Important not-a-lawyer advice: recording phone calls without the other party's
consent is illegal in wide swathes of the U.S., but keeping copies of letters
is legal everywhere.

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
Question: When the party states that "this call may be recorded for quality or
training purposes", does that give you reciprocal permission to record the
call or do you have to explicitly ask for it?

Any lawyers with opinion on this?

~~~
AmIFirstToThink
Follow up question:

What if I said "I am recording this call" while I am in an Automatic Voice
Response system waiting for an human to arrive on the line and talk to me?

As far as I am concerned, human representative or the automated voice response
system, both represent the company that I am interacting with. It's not my
fault that the voice response system that the company used to talk to me (to
answer my questions, or just make me wait) can't understand that I am going to
record the call and act appropriately. The business is perfectly fine with
using the automated system to take critical actions, then it should be fine
with me telling it I will be recording the call, not my fault that their
automated system failed to recognize that.

What do you think?

~~~
KGIII
Intent and reasonable expectations will come in to play.

Unlike the movies, judges hate word games and attempts to skirt the laws. As
in, they really frown on it.

This is not legal advice and I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified legal
representative in the appropriate jurisdiction.

~~~
wpietri
Truth. I once happened to be in a hearing where the judge got the idea that
the plaintiff's attorney might be jerking him around. It was an impressive
display of wrath. Along with crocodiles and bears, federal judges are now on
my "definitely do not fuck with" list.

~~~
KGIII
Playing semantics games is almost guaranteed to piss off the judge. Pissed off
judges are not nice.

It's a very long-winded story, so I will try for the short version. Courts
default to being open to the public. You can go down and watch them. Chances
are, you can even make use of a law library.

Anyhow, this is sort of a hobby of mine. I know, I'm a strange person - but I
love watching the court. Like I said, it's a long story.

I think my favorite was a guy who was in district court and argued with the
judge about the definition of marijuana and the word possession. Now, the
judge was pretty polite and told them that they were trying to give them a
very small fine.

The kid persisted and had no idea about procedure. I mean, he could have
argued those things but there's a procedure. Procedure is very, very important
to judges. Seriously, they love proper procedure so much that they will even
tell you what you need to do. She tried to explain this to the kid.

But no, he persisted and tried to fake his way into appearing to be a legal
scholar. Again, this was district court.

Suffice to say, he kept going before finally admitting guilt and she gave him
the maximum fine and just until the end of the day to pay that fine. At which
point he decided it was time to double down and refuse to recognize the court
- though not as one of those sovereign citizen things.

I'm not sure what the end result was, but he was taken into custody by the
court officers. The rest of the day went quite smoothly.

The best part of this story? He had the chance to speak with the DA prior to
this and the State provides an attorney of the day. He took advantage of
neither one.

~~~
kchoudhu
It boggles my mind when people think they can out-talk people trained to parse
semantics.

------
bichiliad
I love that this is both informative, seemingly complete, and genuinely
useful, and I really hope it gets in front of the people who will need it the
most.

~~~
patio11
It is, somewhat regrettably to me, not nearly complete. This is the Cliff
Notes version -- it's biased towards the most useful particular bits for one
particular use case and constrained by the fact that I was trying to write it
in a few hours on a Saturday afternoon while still having time to play with my
kids.

~~~
sowbug
It gets the essential point across. Communication with a CRA is a battle of
attrition. This is how to send specific early signals that you'll last longer
than they will.

------
the_watcher
This is great advice for writing professional demand letters in general,
beyond just identity theft-related.

------
stretchwithme
It's my understanding that FICO scores are all created using software from
FICO. So I don't think the term has become generic as the article implies.

~~~
dredmorbius
It depends on the context and strictness of the term.

Much of it is the reverse: "credit score" means "FICO score" when _you_ are
being assessed, but not when you request a "free credit score".

------
t23
Great advice. Thank you for sharing this!

------
brndnmtthws
Another good way to protect yourself is to save money, and avoid needing to
rely on banks for a credit lifeline.

~~~
patio11
You might not care about your credit rating but your credit rating,
unfortunately, cares about you.

Do you want to rent an apartment in the United States? You will, in many
geographical markets, expect to have credit pulled as a matter of course. This
is partly to determine ability to pay and partly to determine whether you are
socially established; "I have mountains of money, why would I need _credit_?"
is something which is often said by people who operate meth labs.

Do you want to work in a job which requires a background investigation? Expect
a credit pull.

Do you want certain varieties of insurance policies?

Expect this list to get longer as time goes on, because "credit" encodes a lot
of things which are stupefyingly useful in predicting outcomes in advance.
Like any bit of code which is stupefyingly useful, get_fico_score() is going
to find its way in all sorts of places you'd never naively expect to see it.

Additionally, if someone comes to the mistaken conclusion that you owe them
money, the harassment which likely accompanies that is a nuisance even if the
dings to your credit score are not.

~~~
tptacek
This was a really excellent post, the best I've seen you write up this
material, and among your top 5 posts ever.

Having said that, I'm tentatively going to disagree.

I made a conscious, somewhat coerced choice in my early 20s never to rely on
revolving credit. A combination of random course-of-business (of course
resolved) delinquencies and no history of revolving credit resulted in my
having relatively poor credit. Compounding this, my disinvestment from my own
credit score has led to a new dispute resolution strategy for e.g. medical
billing mistakes, which is "ignore mistakes and disputes forever" \--- you can
imagine the resulting impact on my credit score.

The net effect on my life has been minimal.

It _was_ comically difficult for me to obtain an actual bona fide credit card
(which I wanted in order to broaden my choice of car rental agencies --- a
problem that has become less important over time as more and more rental
agencies accept debit cards). A few weeks after I got the first wire transfer
from the sale of Matasano, calling Chase with a checking account balance that
could fairly be called "moronic", I had to argue for about 30 minutes for them
to issue me a credit card with an extremely minimal monthly balance.

That's about the extent of my problems.

Every landlord I've rented from has pulled my credit. My credit has always
been bad. But my landlord references were spotless, and that's what landlords
seemed to care about.

It's more than likely that if I was in a different career, and particularly if
that career was in a lower-paying sector where workers have less leverage, my
credit score would be a real concern in finding a job. But in this industry,
my general response to being declined for a job as an adverse decision
relating to my credit score would be to do to the reputation of the hiring
firm on Twitter approximately what the lawyers at the Bank of Bigness believe
their regulators will do over an FCRA violation.

I would almost certainly have a hard time getting a loan for a car. But then,
see "revolving credit". _Don 't_ get a loan for a car. I had one once in my
20s and remember it being a pretty miserable experience. Until very recently,
every other car I'd driven since was (a) worse than that car and (b) on
balance a more pleasant experience for not coming with a Significant Monthly
Bill. Obviously, in this industry, you will eventually reach a point in your
career and your personal financial maturity where "obtaining what you believe
to be a car commensurate with your status" will stop being an interesting
problem.

Which, I think, leaves us with home ownership. I don't have a good answer
here. I bought my house in 2005, weeks after starting Matasano, a company
which for all the intents and purposes of my mortgage lender did not exist.
Suffice it to say I was not able to push that lender around with the contents
of my bank account, which were in 2005 also "moronic", but in the other
direction. I probably got a worse rate. And it was 2005, so it's possible that
my only effective qualification for buying a house was "50.0001% likelihood of
currently having a pulse".

My tl;dr here though is, at least in my case: if you don't use credit cards
ever, your credit score doesn't much matter, and as it turns out credit cards
don't much matter either.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I mean, you're rich. The normal rules don't really apply. Your poor credit
sounds like my poor credit, but it has a pretty big impact on my life.

You once mentioned you paid out of pocket to get your family member some kind
of medical procedure. I think it was a CT scan? Anyone who can do that isn't
really in the same class.

Here's one way it matters: every year, your entire well-being is determined
solely by your landlord. You can be an excellent tenant and they'll decide not
to renew your lease because reasons. Now you need to move your whole apartment
in like three months, which means finding a new place. In some cases this
requires a credit check. Not all, but that still limits your options in a
tricky situation. Imagine if the place you lived was determined solely by that
number you didn't pay attention to.

Want a nice car? Better have cash. Laptop? Cash. $3k to drop on a new laptop
isn't feasible for the vast majority of people who aren't affluent.

I know you mean well, and I share your "fuck this broken system" feeling, but
it can get you into trouble. Rebellion only works if you have the means.

Here's a concrete question: you need a laptop to do your job. How do you get
one without credit? A second hand MacBook still costs >$1k. And yeah, we're
talking sums of money that are tiny in comparison to what you're used to. It
might be hard to believe that not everybody has $1k laying around. But paying
$100/mo is far more pleasant, to say the least.

Here's another anecdote: new apartment in a new city. I was about 21 and had
no credit history (bad or otherwise). I'm settling into my new apartment and
call around to find out who the ISP is. It's AT&T. Call them up, ask for
Internet. "No." "What do you mean 'no?'" "The system says 'unknown risk'. Our
policy is to not do business in this situation."

I'm not exaggerating or making it up. There was no alternative, and I was
completely screwed. There was no other ISP! We ended up using a family member
to establish the account. But most people don't have anybody to fall back on.
I don't know if AT&T still has that ridiculous policy, but there are other
situations just like that.

~~~
tptacek
Let me condense my last post down for you.

1\. You're right, in the sense that most people on HN with an established
career in technology are, relatively speaking, "rich". That was my point: if
you're stably employed in technology, your credit score might matter less than
you think it does.

2\. You're wrong, in the sense that with the exception of the credit card
anecdote, which I related as a way of demonstrating that I had in fact had
some interaction with my credit score, all of that post concerned stuff that
happened long before we sold Matasano. By the standards of HN in 2017, in the
mid-00's, I was most assuredly not rich (the way you mean it; I'm just
stipulating your term). I've had terrible credit the whole time.

A big part of my point is that "just use cash" worked out much better for me
than attempting to rely on credit. Obviously, if I worked as a retail clerk,
that would a very problematic strategy. But I don't. If I had been able to
resolve "need a new laptop" with credit instead of cash, I'd have been worse
off.

I get that the rules are different for tech workers. Part of the point of
saying this is to remind people that the rules may be more different for us
than we think, which should have moral implications for us as well.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Well, you mention that you sold Matasano, but that kind of sidesteps that
you'd be screwed if it didn't happen. It's not tech workers vs retail clerks
so much as financial windfall vs having a regular 9-5.

The credit system just sucks. It's a historical accident. But it's also not
really realistic to say "In some cases you can get away with not worrying
about your credit score if you're a tech worker."

~~~
tptacek
I'm not arguing that the credit system doesn't suck. It sucks so much that I
haven't had any meaningful contact with it for 20 years. For most of that
time, the overwhelming majority of which I spent financially insecure (and a
parent, to boot), my disengagement from credit has ended up feeling like a
blessing. I genuinely do not understand why people get credit cards.

As for "windfall vs. 9-5", I spent ~20 years in the latter category, a
category which I'm not unlikely to end up in again, and I simply don't agree
with you.

Maybe another way to put it is this: for all the problems you've had with
personal finances, I assert that acquiring revolving credit is a good solution
to _none of them_.

Finally: since litigating this further is inevitably going to involve getting
into pretty squicky financial details and debates over personal financial
decision-making, I'm going to stop here. Since I think you'll probably
disagree with me, I want to be clear that I expect and will read any rebuttal
to this that you write, but I'm not going to continue the debate.

~~~
sillysaurus3
It solves getting your kids through college. That's one of the other pain
points. The quality of life difference is massive if you have to work full
time and also go to college full time.

It would be delightful to find an answer to some of the problems of bad
credit. But it kind of matters.

------
g051051
Finally a breath of fresh air and reason amidst all of the fear mongering and
anti-CRA FUD. The system isn't perfect, and consumers are definitely at
risk...but it's far more important to really understand the relationship and
interplay between CRAs and businesses in order to get a handle on the problems
and work towards meaningful reform.

~~~
weirdstuff
No, I think we need more FUD given what has just occurred. SSN and sensitive
financial data of over half of U.S. adults obtained by criminals. Nice.

~~~
g051051
What "sensitive financial data"?

~~~
traviscj
Card numbers.

~~~
g051051
> In addition, credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 consumers and
> certain dispute documents, which included personal identifying information,
> for approximately 182,000 consumers were accessed.

That's not "half of U.S. adults" as the OP stated.

