I'm aware this is legally the case, but I think this is yet another sign that default opt-in isn't a legitimate agreement, society has become pretty litigious and I think some of the understanding around default opt-ins during enrollment for other services and third party data sales need to be revisited.
I find them to be highly unethical and to generally result in a contract negotiated without compensation and any communication in good faith.
This is not "default opt-in", like having the "Subscribe to our email newsletter" checked on an online order form. The sharing of credit worthiness information is the cornerstone of your ability to get credit. It's not a hidden extra, it's not something you can choose not to get, there's no "opt out". It's a condition of doing business with the credit grantor. It's like opting out of having a driver's license. If you want to drive, you have to have one.
> The sharing of credit worthiness information is the cornerstone of your ability to get credit. It's not a hidden extra, it's not something you can choose not to get, there's no "opt out". It's a condition of doing business with the credit grantor.
No, this is only true because the law does not meaningfully restrict abusive contracts. Sure, a credit card issuer should [0] be able to ask some agency for information on your credit risk. It does not follow at all that the issuer should have permission to give information back to the agency.
[0] Even this is debatable. One might reasonably argue that the use of inscrutable conditions for the issuance of credit cards is discriminatory and should, as a matter of public policy, be disallowed. As a simple example of how this could work, all credit card issuers could be required to instead issue prepaid cards with identical terms, benefits, and usage from a merchant’s perspective, and credit could be an opt-in extra feature.
How would 'some agency' have anything to say about your credit risk if issuers of credit weren't feeding them information about your credit performance?
What's more bothersome to me is that these companies are scooping up every bit of information they can about me and selling it to anyone. Did I consent to TheWorkNumber? I definitely did not with the first few employers / payroll processors who have sold out my payroll data.
I Google my full name and the first hit is some background check site that shows my birthday, most of addresses I've had since the mid-90s, every family member I've shared an address with since 1999, information on two vehicles I presently own and one former, and that's just the bait to get someone to pay for whatever else they know about me...
> my birthday, most of addresses I've had since the mid-90s, every family member I've shared an address with since 1999, information on two vehicles I presently own and one former,
Your existence in the world isn't a secret. Every scrap of that is public information. You have a postal address to get mail, you register your car with your state to pay taxes on it, etc.
Well, your point overlooks the points I was aiming for.
1. Any of those scraps of data have negligible value by themselves, but when they're aggregated and traded their value is vastly increased.
2. I don't have any choice in how those scraps of data were originally gathered and shared. Should I not to have an address? Pay my taxes? Register my vehicles?
At the individual level nothing stops me from maintaining a list of people I think are trustworthy or noting prior acts for evidence of such.
There’s no opt-in required because you’re not the one providing anything. The customer of the credit agency, the company extending you credit, is opting in to share what they know about you.
> At the individual level nothing stops me from maintaining a list of people I think are trustworthy or noting prior acts for evidence of such.
> There’s no opt-in required because you’re not the one providing anything. The customer of the credit agency, the company extending you credit, is opting in to share what they know about you.
Until you get too large, powerful, and rich, then the government regulates you. This is the purpose of regulation, to control the abusive use of power.
Nothing is really “explicit” when it’s buried in pages of small print legalese. If everyone just read (forget understood, just read) everything they ever signed or agreed to thoroughly, life would slow down significantly.
Take a look at a CC application and see where the information on going to a CRA is. I just went to a random online store and started a CC application. Down in the legal section, right in the first couple of sections, clearly visible:
"Credit Reports: You agree that we have a right to obtain a credit report in connection with our review of your application and after we establish an account, to administer the account. You agree that we may report to others our credit experience with you. At your request we will provide the name and address of each consumer-reporting agency from which we obtained a report about you."
Was it plastered across the very top of the form in bold type? No. Was it "buried in pages of small print legalese"? No.
Many CC contracts I have signed (not US or EU banks) have explicit section and additional (mandatory) signature specifically for sharing data with credit reporting company.
They check all kinds of things, not just credit. Criminal record, job history, salary history, education, etc. How much of that should a prospective employer be "allowed" to check before deciding to hire you? Or a renter check before letting you live in their house? In both cases, they are taking on real risk. How else can they reduce that risk, without doing checks?
That’s beside the point of my post, which was to counter the claim that essentially stated, “you are only opted in to credit bureau tracking because you made the choice to take advantage of a product that is not essential in life”
But the requirement for the credit check is from the bank, renter, employer, etc. They aren't being forced to do that, other than the economics of risk.
The tenant pool in lower income areas tend to have more issues. This is why landlords require background checks, pay stubs, credit score, references etc. Even start all of this, you can still get horrible tenants, but it certainly decreases the likelihood by a huge margin.
i have been renting in several countries, including the US and i have never been asked for a credit check, i have never seen or heard about that for jobs either. why would a job need a credit check? all i care is that you can do the work.
So they can weed applicants out. This is very common in the fire service. Applications can be 40 pages long and they want you to list each financial account, balances, limits, etc. It's ridiculous. But I know just why they're doing it. I also think such requirements are weeding out minority applicants.
at least most agencies have stopped asking you to write down all of your social media accounts & passwords. or requiring you to add HR managers/etc as friends.
They are saying “nobody is going to loan you money if you don’t play our games”. There is no other party you can go to if you don’t like their behavior.
A loan is shared risk. If it wasn’t there should be no interest payments above inflation and labor.
Where is the line for invasiveness? I mean, if I knew a couple was having issues and they were in counseling, but they didn’t start until eight years in, that’s a bad sign and any therapist will probably tell you so. If a bank is allowed to know everything about you they will say no to a loan, probably killing the relationship once and for all. Similarly if they know he has a doctor appointment to look at the lump on his testicle. Predicting people’s lives are about to get very difficult and then forcing it to happen by rejecting or calling a loan is movie villain cruel.
If I were their friend and knew about the marital strife, and they wanted to borrow money from me to do something expensive, my reaction would be no. It was always going to be no because I don’t loan money to friends unless I don’t want that friend. But what I’m going to say is, “besides, those two aren’t gonna be together in three years so how would I get my money back?”
You want banks in your bedroom? Because by their logic this is useful information and if it’s available it would increase their profit margins...
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
That's not strictly true. You just can't get reasonable terms unless you participate.
Credit used to be much, much harder to get, and more expensive. You got loans from friends. You shopped at a particular store for years and built up your reputation before they would offer you credit. You pawned something. Or you just saved your money and paid cash.
>They are saying “nobody is going to loan you money if you don’t play our games”.
Completely untrue. But if you want good loan terms, yes you will need to participate in the system of sharing credit terms, because reputable banks don't want to deal with bad debt.
I'd prefer if we, as a society, could just establish better and more reliable legal consequences for delinquency - potentially with a system for a pooled assurance fund to pay out on bad debts that can't be collected while punishing those who took on such risks in bad faith.
Yes because it is. No because you want something that someone else has (£€¥$) and that someone needs some kind of assurance that they could ever get their money back.
> society has become pretty litigious and I think some of the understanding around default opt-ins during enrollment for other services and third party data sales need to be revisited
Are you saying these two ideas are related? If so, I don't quite see the connection -- can you expand a bit?
Not that poster, but I believe what they're saying is that because we heavily use the law to structure society, it's time to use the law to remove an undesired aspect: default opt-ins.
I find them to be highly unethical and to generally result in a contract negotiated without compensation and any communication in good faith.