The credit bureaus are just as bad as the NSA in the way that they collect

[mfcorey1]

data on people and then disseminate it to companies, employers and others. People have little recourse for stopping them and the challenging of the files usually rules in favor of the bureaus.

[kelliekat44]

1. And the credit bureaus cost lives and suffering.

Especially when they have erroneous information that causes people to not be able to be gainfully employed, lose their homes, or lose jobs they already have. Many people are ruined for life by faulty or negative credit ratings. Between the banks and the credit bureaus people have been driven into deep depression and some even commit suicide. Shelters are full of women with children who were unable to maintain their homes because of the impact of bad credit ratings on their economic welfare. And the very sad part about all of this is that a credit report give an arbitrary way for lenders and credit card companies to deny credit to some while approving it for others with the identical credit rating.

[Separation]

2. Maybe a little off topic

but I just read an article about a family who received junk mail from Office Max that was addressed to "Mike Seay, but the second line read "Daughter Killed in Car Crash."

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/17/22343504-couple-gets-letter-to-daughter-killed-in-car-crash?lite

Not even talking about how painful that would be seeing, lets talk about how they even have that information? NSA, credit bureaus, advertisers.

I saw a show the other night called Almost Human, its set in the near future and when you walk by a billboard it generates advertisement that is biometrically set to the individual. Would not surprise me to see this in the next 20 years.