how did we let the "CREDIT SCORE" be a stranglehold?

[grasswire]

How did this artifice, convoluted and manipulated, come to haunt people so badly that if they want to pay off their bills fast, it is a negative on the credit score and harms their ability to navigate today's complicated world?

It seems nuts.

Why did Americans allow it to happen?

[msongs]

1. "our" information bought and sold and used as a profit center yet we get NO slice of the action.

the least these crammers could do was give us half of what they are charging for our data.

[grasswire]

3. yeah, you can only see YOUR data if you are turned down...

...for something they would charge you money for, like a loan or bank account or something.

Even then, they hold secret dossiers on everyone.

The compilation of databases is the enemy of the people.

When dissent is criminalized, those databases will be used against us in ways even Orwell didn't foresee. Orwell was an optimist, it turns out.

[Hannah Bell]

4. bit by bit pieces of people's lives are stolen & used to generate profit for capitalists.

same thing going on right now on the internet; personal information being stolen, sliced, diced & sold for profit.

same thing with health information, same thing with every interaction with government, helping professions, employment, what have you.

[999998th word]

9. Another means to control us-eg:credit score as a requirement on a job application

and be a determining factor for a job that doesnt have anything to do with handling ANY money? also many people have been
unemployed for a long time.Uninsured w/medical bills,rent+...Just another method of keeping us distracted ,compliant and
fearful .One of the many'tools'at their disposal -all used with the hope we dont see the bigger picture-ALEC?
I call bullshit.
:rant: :smoke:

[Hannah Bell]

2. "we" didn't. "they" did, without any input from "we" whatsoever.

[KT2000]

5. Simple

it allowed big corporations to find a new way to charge more for some than others. I guess it is a form of capitalistic social ngineering and keeping people down.

[grasswire]

7. you have hit on it

It is a way of intimidating people and making some feel worthless.

[grasswire]

6. the youngsters among us may not know...

....that just a few decades ago you could walk into a department store and buy something on store credit with no background check, no references, nothing. A refrigerator? Put $50 bucks down, sign a paper, and the store would deliver it the next day. You would make a monthly payment to the store, which kept its own books on the transactions. Nobody sold the data, or compiled your finances or intimidated you for daring to try to buy something.

There was something called "revolving credit".

[Art_from_Ark]

12. Other stores had "lay-away"

You would pay in installments for, say, a major appliance, but you wouldn't get possession until you made the final payment.

[SoCalDem]

8. We "let" it happen by occasionally NEEDING to borrow money

When banks & lending institutions started using only/mainly financial data, and did away with loan committees comprised of REAL PEOPLE, sitting face to face with the would-be borrowers, the credit score people hit their home run..

It made it easy for bankers/lenders to deny people they might have previously approved, and it made people whose scores were bad, just quit asking, or worse yet, go to places that would charge them HUGE interest (those places would often then be bought out by the same banks whose loan denials sent the people there in the first place).

If you need to borrow money you will always be at the mercy of the would-be lenders.. it's just that simple.. Their goal is to give you the least possible amount, for the most profit for themselves. If you do not qualify, they will loan it to someone else with better scores.. they don't care about your needs.. they are in business to loan money & make profits.

The best thing people can do for themselves is to forget about the credit score thing, and pay cash for as much as possible without paying interest on things you could save for.

One credit card, well maintained, and a car payment always paid on time, are usually enough to establish decent credit so that when you have saved 20% down on a house, you should have an ok credit score.. If you do not plan on buying a house, just pay cash for most things and a credit score is meaningless to you:)..and you'll sleep at night:)

[grasswire]

10. with all due respect, why should we cooperate with tyranny?

Tyranny in the name of profit, to boot!

It isn't just people who need to borrow money who are screwn over by this system. Landlords now do credit screenings. As do employers. As do other entities.

What angers me is the capricious application. Pay your bills too fast; harm your credit score. Got no credit history at all? Lousy credit score.

Insanity.

[SheilaT]

11. Nearly forty-five years ago I worked

for a credit bureau, the only one in the medium-sized city I lived in at the time.

Back then all of the records were paper records, and even though we did our level best to make sure the information was accurate, mistakes sometimes crept into the records. One result of having that job was I became adamantly opposed to naming a son so-and-so junior. I saw that such naming almost invariably led to the credit records of dad and son becoming hopelessly confused when son first went out to work and started establishing his own credit.

I also learned the value of establishing credit slowly, which was somewhat easier back then, before credit cards became universal. To the best of my knowledge BankAmericard (the immediate forerunner of Visa) and Master Card did not exist then, although Diner's Club and American Express were already out there. People had gas company credit cards and various store charge cards, and that was about it.

During my time at the credit bureau we had a project which involved going through each and every credit record and flagging ones with good enough credit because some one of the major gas companies was preparing to send out gas credit cards to everyone deemed sufficiently credit worthy. It was quite a tedious undertaking.

We were already anticipating the coming of computerization, although I left before that happened.

[wickerwoman]

13. We stopped fighting for our right to privacy.

First it was pee in the cup for a job. Now they can root out that bankruptcy nine years ago or the fact that you have diabetes so you won't drag down the company health plan. They can check your facebook page to see how much you drink or fire you for smoking at home.

Revision of privacy laws are way, way overdue in the US.