Thanks, Equifax.

[crashdown]

So I just enrolled in the USPS Informed delivery.
Figured it would save me a trip to the mail box cluster down the street if there was nothing important in the box.
It asked for some simple shit like address, phone, etc...
When I had to verify my identity at the end, it had a drop down answers with stuff that could only be found on a credit report ( I think ), like social, old phone numbers long forgotten, old addresses, etc...
Again, I only gave them my name, current address, and email for notifications. I was even thinking one could enroll their neighbor it was so simple, but all kinds of personal shit populated in the verification questions/answers. I probably haven’t addressed an envelope in 20 years, and maybe drop off an eBay package at the post office once or twice a year..... How did they pull all that stuff up on me?

[DenverGP]

How did they pull all that stuff up on me?

That is exactly the type of data stolen from Equifax.

[CS1983]

The problem isn't that credit reports are used in banking, the problem is that credit reports are now accessed by tons of people that really shouldn't have access to them. There's no reason that prospective employers, cell phone service providers, the cable company, and the myriad of other people that run your credit score every time you do business with them should be doing any of it.

Hell, we bought a car not long ago and told the dealer we would be paying them cash, not getting a loan and they STILL ran a fucking credit report on my wife and I.

We need a HIPA for credit. We also need a means of changing our Social Security numbers should they be compromised. By the way this is why we should NEVER use biometric IDs.

That's not the point. The point is if banking were different, there would be no credit reports. Your reputation in the community would be your "credit report" instead of your credit report forming your lending-community reputation.

Essentially, credit reports are a violation of subsidiarity and even a man's good name, because they do not provide a proper picture of a person. There are people with great "credit" who shouldn't be given one of the bank's lollipops, much less a loan. And there are people who don't look good on paper and yet they represent no actual risk. These sorts of things are unknowable in the modern banking context.

[Gman]

How did they pull all that stuff up on me?

They know who your family members are, past addresses any of them have had, employment info....way too much shhhhtuff.

[Zundfolge]

That's not the point. The point is if banking were different, there would be no credit reports. Your reputation in the community would be your "credit report" instead of your credit report forming your lending-community reputation.

Well that's not how history worked. The company that is today called Equifax was started in 1899. Given how litigious people are today (and quick to scream "discrimination") there's no way you could get by on using someone's "reputation in the community" to secure or deny credit. People have long demanded a quantifiable and impartial scoring system for credit.

That said, I'll agree we'd be better off without the large national chain banks (which is why we should probably all be switching to credit unions).