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Credit Industry Opposes Anti-ID Theft Method
athloi alerts us to an opinion piece running in USA Today on the backlash against an effective tool to fight identity theft. The big three credit bureaus don't like the numerous state laws that have been passed requiring them to give consumers a simple way to freeze their credit. Watch for a push at the federal level to get a watered-down statute that pre-empts state laws. "Lawmakers across the country — pushed by consumer advocacy groups — ... have passed laws that allow consumers to freeze their credit, a surefire way to prevent thieves from opening new accounts or obtaining a mortgage in a consumer's name. Under a freeze, a consumer cuts off all access to his credit report and score, even his own. All lenders require that information, so no one can borrow money in the consumer's name until he or she lifts the freeze. It's simple, and it works. So, of course, it's under threat from the Consumer Data Industry Association, which represents the Big Three credit bureaus. They make millions gathering and selling consumer data. Freezes cut into that business."
Another happy side-effect of freezing your credit: No snail-mail spam about preapproved credit offers. It's saved me much over the last year in time devoted to shredding.
More Twoson than Cupertino
since credit cards have absolutely no profit in preventing credit card fraud / id theft (remember, it's the merchants who get screwed), of course they're against this sort of thing.
If someone stole your identity, what is to stop them from pretending to be you in order to disable the freeze on your credit?
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
I heard that it was actually just easier for them to pay off credit card fraud in general, than to prevent it.
Which is why they usually don't do anything to prevent it.
Remember the guy who tore up his credit card entry form like they said to, then taped it back together, put in an old address, and a different phone number, and still got a credit card in his name?
Yeah, the companies know how to prevent all this stuff, just it would cost more money than they lose by just eating the costs.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
How, exactly, do freezes legitimately cut into their business? No one is supposed to be able to get a credit report on you without your explicit authorization anyway. Any credit reports requested on you without your explicit authorization is a violation of federal law.
The bottom line is that the Big Three credit reporting agencies are sleezebags. If they had their way, they'd have it so that anyone can put anything in your credit file they like, and anyone can request any info they like any time. They don't want you to have any control over what's in your credit file, because ultimately that is the source of their power!
Screw this. I'm gonna go live off the grid somewhere.
My blog
So all that's needed is a 4 digit number to bypass the freeze ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Puke...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I would be happy to have a credit freeze on all my accounts. Borrowing money is a horrible system. It works for starting a business or a mortage on a house but all the little scams like car loans and furniture store and such only encourage people to live beyond their means. Paying cash for those kinds of things is so much cheaper. Debt is a form of slavery, your no longer working for money your working so they won't take your things away. It makes it so the credit card company owns you. Sure you can be good with a credit card but they do everything in their power to make you fall in that trap so that they can milk as much money from you as possible.
They dump it on the merchant and on you.
They don't care about that level of fraud. They'll just sell the debt to a collection agency and you'll end up fighting the collection agency to get your credit report fixed.
And that's for anything that they just didn't charge back to the merchants.
Your credit should be frozen BY DEFAULT.
The credit reporting agencies should send you a form letter EVERY SINGLE TIME anyone tries to access your info. And just include the cost of that processing in the fee they charge.
The merchants can pass that fee on to you when you want to establish credit with them. And if you fuck up and it doesn't get approved, they can have you pay again to try again.
It's a simple process and it would almost eliminate ONE type of fraud. Not all fraud and not other types of fraud. But you wouldn't have to worry about anyone opening up new accounts in your name.
This web site has some good info on which states allow you to freeze your credit and how.
They make millions gathering and selling consumer data. Freezes cut into that business.
fuck them. if they don't like it they can take their ball and go home. or get a job or something.I would love to be able to freeze my credit. Then whenever Joe Blow Student Loan Consolidation company and 50 of his cousins keep pinging my credit just to send me snail mail spam to sign up, it'll be ignored.
Anyone know which states allow this? I know the credit reporting agencies charge for a privacy service. Is this free?
I was the victim of identity theft several years ago and had a "credit lock" put on my accounts with all three credit reporting agencies. What this supposedly does is makes it so that the three agencies will contact me first before a line of credit is opened in my name. This is supposed to be in effect for seven years from the time I established it. However, since then, I have opened two lines of credit and never once been contacted them as they claimed they would. These guys feel no obligation to follow their own guidelines. Why would they follow someone else's?
This guy's the limit!
Hi. You must not be familiar with the concept of state sovereignty, which is embodied in our Constitution.
Please proceed with your research on this topic before bestowing upon us any more of your pearls of wisdom. Thank you, and goodbye.
As the summary said, the Consumer Data Industry Association "represents the Big Three credit bureaus". According to their membership information, CDIA member companies are engaged in credit reporting, tenant screening, employment reporting, etc. Companies that are not eligible for membership include:
* Commercial Banks
* Retail Stores
* Bankcard Issuers
* Retail Credit Card Issuers
* Credit Unions
* Mortgage Brokers
* Real Estate Agencies
* Nonbank Banks [wtf?]
* Savings and Loan Institutions
So CDIA is the credit reporting agencies, plus (most likely) ChoicePoint and Axciom and other datamining privacy haters. But not credit card companies or lenders, or anyone who loses money when identities are stolen.
It was actually all cut and pasted directly from TFA.
You don't expect any real work done by Slashdot, do you?
Your credit should be frozen BY DEFAULT.
Wouldn't a better solution simply be to shut down the credit reporting agencies? They seem to do more harm than good, and that seems a ligit reason to close them down for good. It would stop ID theft immediately.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the situation, but I have a question. Presumably, the idea behind the credit freeze is to stop those who have stolen your identity from doing naughty things with it. However, if the would-be thief has the wherewithal to abscond with thousands of dollars under your name, would this same thief not also have the ability to remove the freeze?
Thief: I would like to borrow $100,000 from Knave's account please.
Clueless Customer Rep: Sorry sir, Knave has put a freeze on the account.
Thief: I see...
(4 minutes later, with a different clueless customer rep)
Thief: Knave here, I would like to remove the freeze on my account, I'm buying myself a sweet car.
Clueless Customer Rep: Very good sir, freeze ovah.
Thief: Thanks!
What am I missing?
Expect these big three troublemakers to lobby for a weaker federal law that preempts all state regulation in the process. After all, that's the American way these days.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If you can't get additional credit then you can't get yourself further into debt, which means that credit lenders and credit checking agencies can't make more money out of you for the duration of the freeze.
Helping people get more into debt is what these guys do. Why would they be remotely in favour of a measure that (along with helping to reduce the likelyhood of credit-related fraud) would allow you to stop yourself from spending money that you don't have and thus digging yourself further into the hole that they want you to live your life in.
Remember, when these guys say credit they mean debt.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I thought information wants to be free?
Oh, not personal information, you say? Just the ones and zeroes that we want access to, not the ones and zeroes that they want access to?
The information age is a double-edged sword. Just as we can make better purchasing decisions based on easily aggregated information, companies can make better lending/purchasing decisions based on easily aggregated information. Is there a correlation between credit scores and suitabilty as borrowers or tenants? Sure. Why should we fault the companies that operate more efficiently because they take that into consideration? And FWIW, your credit history (aside from bankruptcies) can be rebuilt in less than seven years.
And no, it's not impossible to live without credit, you just need to make some sacrifices. It's a question of how much you value the privacy of information you choose to make public.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Bullshit. The states should be more powerful than they are. There's nothing worse than a federal government dictating one-size-fits-all laws that don't really work for 49% of the population.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Well, it's worse than that. In many cases, stolen credit=profit for the card companies, etc. When a merchant processes a fraudulent transaction, who do you think gets burned? Not the credit-card company. The merchant eats the transaction, and sometimes additional penalties (see: profit) for being a bad boy and accepting fraudulent cards without checking them properly... despite the fact that CC companies seem to strongly avoid implementing better ways to check against fraud.
True case in point: My sister worked for a bank that did mortgage and consumer lending. When they pulled an applicant's credit record, that record includes everyone else who has also accessed that credit record. Although it should be illegal, they would use any reason possible to turn down someone who had recent hits on their credit reports because they didn't want to deal with customers who might be "shopping around for the best credit deal." In this circumstance, totally irrelevant credit data -- i.e. who else had accessed your credit record recently -- was used against you.
These bastards have to go down!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Denial
of
service
Screw this. I'm gonna go live off the grid somewhere.
By "off the grid" do you mean "completely anonymous" or just "not in any of the credit databases?"
If you have ever borrowed anything (student loan, house loan, car loan, credit card, etc.) then you are already on the grid, and they will not delete your data no matter how much you beg. The only way off is to completely change your identity (name change, social security number change, etc...I am not even sure if this can be done, nor if it is ultimately effective).
If you want to be completely anonymous, you will have to get rid of your social security card, drivers license, telephone service subscription, house/apartment, etc. Even then if you have any biometric information already recorded (fingerprints on file or what-have-you) you won't be able to get those erased.
Have fun off the grid...
"Now they can just insert an item into your credit file, wait until you are denied employment/that mortgage/security clearance/etc/etc and know that you will pay up because they basically have you by the balls."
No they don't
Can I freeze my wife's credit?
Anyone know the history of these "agencies" they are not part of the government right? Not regulated? Why does anyone believe them. I could create my own credit agency. The whole credit system just stinks.
Credit reporting agencies, when functioning as intended, allow individual risk to be borne by the risky individual. Without them, the interest rate has to reflect the overall risk that banks must take by loaning to individuals.
In other words, if you have good credit, you really don't want to get rid of the idea entirely, if it can be made to function as it's supposed to.
Similarly, insurance companies must average over all of their customers. Evaluating the risk allows them to charge more appropriate rates to individuals. Without the ability to segregate based on risk, people who wisely build their homes well above a flood plain end up subsidising people who build right up on edge of the beach, who, ironically, are typically much better off financially than their inland-dwelling counterparts.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Federal law has jurisdiction over interstate commerce.
One can also stop the flow of pre-approved credit cards with an opt-out system similar do the do-not-call list.
e en.shtm
It worked very well for me.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescr
http://www.bruguier.com
Now I'm not arguing right now for anything to be done to stop manipulative advertising...that gets into some murky free speech territory...so don't start that argument. However, you have to admit you are a bit shady if you use manipulative advertising and try your damndest to take money from stupid people by taking advantage of their stupidity. It may be the law of the jungle, and a sucker is born every minute, blah blah blah, but you certainly can't legitimately claim you are standing on any kind of moral ground when you do a thing like that, according to any socially accepted definition of the word 'moral.'
And here is where I go ad hominem as an expression of a personal hypothesis I can't prove: I think you are probably a really annoying asshole in real life, and I'm sorry for the people you work with, and who may be a client of yours (if you are in a position to have clients). (now, respond with an accusation of cowardice because I posted as AC, or pick on grammatical structure, because that's what people like you do)
So you'd like to have powerful state assemblies dictating one-size-fits-all laws that don't really work for 49% of the state's population? Newsflash - people are either not as special as you'd like to think (those one-size-fits-all civil rights legislations come to mind), and governments for smaller constituencies have the ability to REALLY fuck minorities, as your likelihood to find a majoritarian group of asshats increases as you decrease population size.
Personally, I'm quite happy that I can go anywhere in the US and be guaranteed a certain minimum set of laws. I'd be even happier if I could go anywhere in the world and be guaranteed the same set of minimum laws everywhere. Now, that doesn't address the overall idiocy of lawmakers at any level, but I don't think that that's what your complaint was about.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The GP clearly doesn't understand the time value of money. In some cases it's cheapest to pay everything up front. But in cases where the interest owed on the the product is less than the interest you can earn in a high yield savings account, then using credit is your best friend. For example, a colleague of mine just bought a new car. He was going to pay cash because he didn't want to pay extra on interest, but the interest was below 1%. Since accounts like ING Orange Savings pay 4.5%, he found that if he financed the car on this 1% auto loan, he could pay off the tax of the car from the interest he earns by not paying it all up front. I generally don't make it a habit of buying anything I can't afford with the cash I have, but credit allows me to wait 30 days to pay it off. Giving me not only time to move funds from one place to another, but also gives me 30 more days to earn interest on that amount of money.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
"Paying cash for those kinds of things is so much cheaper."
This is not always the case. If you have the cash, but can get a low enough interest rate on a loan (say 4%) and a guaranteed return on the cash (say, 5.15%) then you'd actually be losing money to pay cash.
Since TFA didn't have many details about WHY the credit groups opposed them, I'd wager at least part of it is a number of states passing similar but different laws. I'm not in the business of providing services to people in multiple states, but if I was I would sure hate the constant state vs. state one-ups-manship that forces me to add different rules for handling customers in different states.
I'm sure they are mad because they lose potential debtors to this. It's probably the prime reason. But looking for a single federal guideline isn't too much to ask, is it? I'd favor more of a state's issues union concept though, where states who want to be progressive on certain issues can work together on unified guidelines that get the job done without having to convince all 50 states to go along with them. But that won't happen because the state politicians don't gain much by saying, "Hmm.. Arizon's law is good. We'll just take that one."
As a side note... the Kohls near my house announces credit card signups over the PA. It's so f-ing annoying it makes me want to puke. "Way to go on that Code-C, Lane 1! We need another Code-C from Lanes 2 and 3!"
Bullshit. The states should be more powerful than they are. There's nothing worse than a federal government dictating one-size-fits-all laws that don't really work for 49% of the population.
One of the reasons that federalism (that is, shared governance) is a good system is that it allows the states to "test-run" laws, to see which work and which don't. Once a large majority of states have non-contradictory laws, all governing the same thing in nearly the same way, it is time for the federal government to provide the one missing piece: consistency.
Absolutely, the states should be the test beds for laws, and they should be empowered to evolve the laws on a smaller stage. But its like in software: at some point it pays to refactor for consistency, efficiency, and simplicity. This is, in fact, a law that works suprisingly well, and has almost no negative impact on the populace. At something like 38 separate state-wide statutes, it is at (or at least nearing) that stage.
What are you invested in that's returning 13%, and over what period? I've been getting more like 9% annualized over the last 7 years or so, on a fairly conservative portfolio of equities, and considered that acceptable. (Better than the S&P 500 anyway.)
Uhh, the state IS more important than the Nation, and the County SHOULD be more important than the state. Maybe than I would be able to exercise a little of the power I am SUPPOSED to have. I government By the people, for the people means I am the most important peice, and it should go downhill from there.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
I bet these 2.3 million people don't want the law weakened.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
They make money no matter how it flows through an account. It only matters that it flows, so they can digest the nutrients and expel the waste to the funkier, higher rate credit agencies. To them, or most anybody, blockage is not pleasant.
What?
I'm an avid believer in minimizing my credit use. I think obtaining credit for certain things like buying a car or a house is fine, but I think credit cards give us a false sense of security. In that, it causes us to to devalue what things are worth. When you buy something with cash in hand you feel a sense of empowerment because you have the means to accomplish what you set out to do NOW. With credit you are operating at a deficiency (if you use credit cards to pay for things with money that you don't plan on having in the early future) You don't have worth to give you to the means to accomplish what you want, so you resort to sacrificing your financial future for a short term gain that isn't always quantifiable. This causes you to accumulate debt that you didn't think you would have. Now im not blaming people for this, its just the way it is and I understand that people feel like they need to obtain credit to buy in times of need, im just not sure how far you should go.
Secondly, I think that credit report system is flawed, having lenders use it for lending purposes are certainly understandable. The problem is I don't think its a good idea to use it as an end all solution to determine if someone is legit. People change, mistakes are made and are possibly corrected. Also the big thing i have a problem is with is that it is used by non-lenders. Paying bills such as utilities and rent should not even be factored into the use of credit reports. The largest problem of all, you don't have much control over what goes on your record. Basically you are putting someone else in power of determining your creditability and that is not something you want to do.
I'm interested in knowing if anyone would be interested in joining a grass roots effort to limit the scope of credit bureau influence.
I'm going to setup a website put something together, please email me if you are interested
trinsic@in-trinsic.net
for Indentity Theft along with the merchants that facilitate identity theft. Problem solved. Peoples' credit problems will be fixed asap, and resources will be devoted to catching identity theft criminals at the expense of credit card companies. Put this on state by state ballot initiatives. It's ridiculous that credit companies can send snail mail spam by the truckload and not be legally liable for being complicit in fraud when it occurs.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Once a large majority of states have non-contradictory laws, all governing the same thing in nearly the same way, it is time for the federal government to provide the one missing piece: consistency.
Please read your constitution. It is exactly this kind of gross misunderstanding of the role of the federal government that is responsible for the intrusive nanny state the USA has become.
But in what might seem like a contradiction, I do feel this is a federal matter, not a state matter. It definately fits within the interstate commerce clause. That means the states shouldn't have anything to do with this.
You see, the roles of state and federal government do not (in theory) overlap. The role of the federal governent is clearly defined in the constitution. All other concerns are those of local governments. Unfortunately, that is not the way it has played out...
Its funny, because your insurance example is already what happens. They DO charge more for living in a flood plain. Health insurance is not allowed to charge more for higher risk people (fat, smokers, etc), which is unfortunate.
However, even with credit reporting, most insurance still functions as you describe. They have just another "reason" to arbitrarly raise your rate.
As far as loans go, credit cards don't seem to be working out too well for consumers. I think we'd be better off without them all together as well. Loans for houses and cars are less risky, because you can simply repo the house or car should the consumer default.
I believe you would be complaining about those that can't get a job in the PRIVATE sector. The public sector IS the government dimwit.
My Babylon
Of course, the corollary to that is if the minimum set of laws that are provided aren't to your liking, there's proportionally less you can do about it. Which is the argument for the strongest governance being at the smallest level. If your city council screws you on whether you're allowed to put solar panels on your roof or a windmill in your back yard (because they're eyesores), you can directly agitate for rule change and represent an almost-significant number of votes. Failing that, you can move outside city limits, which will involve the turmoil of moving, but you can most likely keep the same job, the same social network, and the same pastimes.
If your county board screws you on whether you're allowed to put solar panels on your roof or a windmill in your back yard (because of zoning), you can try to run for office, or you can try to drum up a couple thousand other voters to lobby for change. Failing that, you can move outside the county. This will involve the turmoil of moving, it may be impractical to keep the same job, you can probably maintain largely the same social network and the same pastimes.
If your state legislature screws you on whether you're allowed to put solar panels on your roof or a windmill in your back yard (because the Dept. of Natural Resources is concerned it will ruin bird habitats), you can work to drum up a couple dozen thousand other voters to lobby for change. Failing that, you can move outside the state. Now you're moving, getting a new job, new friends, and a new pastime.
If the fed.gov screws you on whether you're allowed to put solar panels on your roof or a windmill in your back yard (because the National Coalition Of Power Companies lobbied to make it illegal), you can work to drum up a few million other voters to lobby for change. Failing that, you can move to Canada, where you won't have a job, your friends will speak French, and you'll have to take up hockey. (To Canadians: I kid, of course)
Besides, while it might be true that getting the asshat majority is easier with smaller voting populations, it's also true that it's much, much cheaper for lobbying groups to work at the federal level than it is for them to work at all the local levels. So you're far more likely to see a gross distortion of the "will of the people" in favor of the "will of the industry groups."
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Health insurance is not allowed to charge more for higher risk people (fat, smokers, etc), which is unfortunate.
That's why the smart companies offer rebates for non-smokers and folks enrolled in exercise programs.
And, in the original context, "interstate commerce" did not mean "everything under the sun". Maybe you could tell us what the Constitutional defintion of commerce was in 1776 because, reading the history book sections about the troubles the Revolutionary Era Patriots had with Great Britain, excessive regulation and abuse of the economic and commerce law was one of the primary reasons why we're not still a British colony.
The concepts expressed in the 9th and 10th Amendments also indicate that you're perception isn't in line with the true principles which founded this nation. You are in line with the conpiratorial overlords who have held power since the Civil War, though, so you can take solace in that.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Unfortunately, the Constitution disagrees with you. Perhaps it's time for a serious review of that document, but the Founders had had a bad experience with states' rights under the Articles of Confederation. Thus the national government rules with a "rod of steel" instead of a "rod of sand" where there are discrepancies between state laws and federal laws.
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
I was in a dispute with the Philadelphia Inquirer. I paid for an 8 week subscription, which I let expire. They kept sending me papers and claimed I owed them for another subscription. They had a collection agency send me a letter to collect.
I simply wrote back to the collection agency, explaining that I did not owe the Inquirer any money. I never heard from the collection agency again. Subsequent checks to the credit repoting companies showed nothing on my credit reports.
One advantage of a debit card is that it can be "zeroed" (no balance) with a "speed dial" to the bank's automated phone "voicemail" (IVR) system. Just keep two accounts, one the pool of money, the other a "public" account for transfers. Program your mobile phone's speed dial button to dial the numbers (with pauses between menus) that transfer all the money from the public account back into the private pool. Give out only the public account#/card#. Program another speed dial button to transfer money in (maybe a button for $1000, another for $100, another for $20) to keep the public one liquid, but not a big loss.
Of course, web services should do this, but they're not necessary, and any cheap phone will work. Just make sure it doesn't sound the tones when it works, or you could get "sniffed". The actual over-the-air transaction is probably safe enough for most people's use, protected by both banks and phone companies.
Until everyone's doing it, and the crooks figure out how to crack this protection, too. While the banks, telcos and FBI all stand idly by, distracting us with fake news about "terrorist" money launderers.
--
make install -not war
Is your .sig from the movie "Real Men"?
http://xkcd.com/386/
Actually deadbeats (the technical term) are some of the best prospects for banks and the credit industry. It's hard to make money off someone with a 820+ FICO (super prime) as they are unlikely to revolve (run a balance) or incur overlimit or late fees. Even if they do revolve, the interest rate will be Prime + 1.9 or a similarly low rate. In addition, high FICO customers generally have multiple bank relationships so the bank will usually waive an accidental late payment.
The real money is to be made in the sub-prime (FICO 620) segment where you can charge high interest rates (Prime + 15%) and get lots of fees. And the other hand, all the the credit risk (chance of not ever getting paid) is in the low FICO customers.
the buy the records where the pre-specified critera match.
If the lenders like what they see about you, they send you a pre-selected or pre-approved offer. they say
we want XX,XXX-XX,XXX income, XXX-XXX credit score people, who own a home, in New Jersey... and buy a few thousand...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
...conpiratorial overlords who have held power since the Civil War...
Unfounded conspiracy theory. No evidence offered. Next!
This is getting offtopic, but the reasoning for that were laregly because of the lack of quick and reliable ways to disseminate information throughout the country. This was a kludge to keep misinformed parties from making bad decisions with regards to the nation as a whole.
Nonbank Banks [wtf?]
I think that would be PayPal.
Learn to love Alaska
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
http://slashdot.org/~HomelessInLaJolla/journal/175 777
You weren't modbombed, you're just a troll.
Now have a nice tall glass of STFU.
Not all places give you a full report, many places will give you a shortened consumer report that doesn't contain your full credit history which is pretty useless for obtaining most loans.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
You have made an assumption about my reasons for this becoming a federal law (I'll grant I wasn't clear on my purpose, read carefully). The reasons for it falling under federal jurisdiction are, as you agree, inter-state commerce. It shouldn't be federalized because it has consensus, it should be federalized when it has consensus. My concern is more over the timing of federalization. Too many federal programs and laws are put in place before any proof of concept laws have established best practice at the state levels (DMCA, PATRIOT, ad nauseum). Such laws stifle innovation and inhibit any evolutionary process in law-making. *That* is what leads to the nanny state: ill-concieved, speculative, and reactionary laws which fail to adequately account for the complexities of their issue.
It definately fits within the interstate commerce clause. That means the states shouldn't have anything to do with this.
This is, I think, where we disagree. I think it perfectly reasonable for a state to make laws governing the inter-state activities of its constituents. The states are, in general, allowed to put laws in place which go beyond the restrictions and protections provided by federal statutes, so long as they don't attempt to override federal laws (here's the inevitable grey area). This needs to happen more. The federal government needs to stop trying to react so quickly and use the states as field testers for laws. This provides for comparison on differing solutions and, more importantly, encourages engagement in the law making process by the smaller state units and their constituencies. Plus, it seems vastly easier to repeal state laws that aren't working because both the egos and the stakes are smaller.
Thank you for promoting my journal. It's clear that I'm being swarmed by trolls... similar to this.
For all we know you're Pudge, you're posting AC, and you can't handle it when someone else posts the truth of matters which you profit from.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Hop on over to GreenDimes and sign up. For $36/yr (at least that's what it cost when I signed up a few months ago), they purge your name from all these mailing-lists AND plant one tree a month in your name. So you can reduce the flow of junk (which saves trees) and have trees planted. It gets you that much closer to carbon neutrality.
FWIW, before I signed up, I used to have my box stuffed with junk on a daily basis. Now only the occasional piece trickles in, and that's only from companies who haven't scrubbed their lists yet.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
You're the one positing a "theory" - the burden of proof is on you.
This is where your mental illness, or supreme inadequacy, is showing. Theory would be that international bankers are all philanthropic saints who are in business for the greater good of all humanity.
FACT would be that international bankers exist, they have held their businesses within their close circle of family and friends for centuries, and that they are shrewd businessmen who, through living in private communities with private security forces, have distanced themselves from the social problems created by their deliberate and cutthroat pursuit of profit margins.
But don't let the facts interrupt your rants and steady stream of daily hate which you direct towards me.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
NonBank Banks:
Bank Holding companies that are actually not in the banking business, but own other banks.
Again, you have failed to show or demonstrated proof for your assertion. If you wish this claim to be believed, you must provide something to substantiate it.
Facts are facts, bub. If you don't believe that the sky is blue, or that water is wet, or that Santa Claus lives at the north pole, then that's your problem. It's become obvious over the last several months that there's some inner brain malfunction which causes you to enjoy being a griefer on Slashdot.
If you want evidence of the existence of the World Bank, or the Federal Reserve, or the International Monetary Fund, or if you want to know who sits on their boards of directors, or who their primary business partners and investors are, or if you want to know what families they are descended from, or if you want to know anything about PR, financial profiling, credit scoring, or the distribution of wealth by population in the United States you are free to query Google.
I've already done my research. I cannot help it if you refuse to do yours.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
My significant other and I just bought our first furniture set this past weekend. We got approved from HSBC for the in store financing. We had to talk to the HSBC representative in the store over the phone to verify us. The questions surprised us. We were asked "what city does your brother live in?" and they gave us a list of four cities to choose from. The next one way, "At what company did your father work for last". Then she got questions about her step dad. I asked what my family members are doing on my credit report and was told "We compile information from a variety of public information stores". Keep in mind I haven't talked to my brother in years and had no idea where he was, but guessed based on where he went to college, and my S.O. hasn't spoken to her step dad in decades. So if you think the informaiton web is only for you, wrong. The web is growing and includes people you know too. Truly scary how interconnected these new data bases are. I figure they are using a service like LexisNexus or some such to group credit users. Much like the US Govt uses these databases to keep tabs on terrorists and their associates.
Yeah, that's the theory. I wish it actually worked that way. Man, that would be sweet!
Sorry to inform you but the days where a creditor needed a social security number to put something deragatory on you credit report are LONG gone. It is actually one of the biggest myth's of credit reports. See this: See MYTH #8: http://www.fatwallet.com/t/52/225082/
If it's up to the states to handle, then federalizing it is actually illegal. Besides, if it's already consistent, what do you gain?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I'm not talking about the mentally disabled here. If you are going to sign an agreement, make sure you understand the agreement. If you're not capable of understanding the agreement, find someone you trust who is, or even pay someone to understand and explain the agreement for you.
If you don't understand the agreement, or don't like the terms of the agreement, then don't agree to the agreement.
See? Not hard. Not rocket science.
People who rack up high-interest debt generally fall into two categories: Uninformed people who should have availed themselves of the opportunity to be informed, and informed people who make bad decisions anyway.
Too many Americans don't seem to be able to correlate what they want to buy with the amount of money they have to spend. You'll find the highest percentage of them in Congress.
paintball
...that said false things about you that denied you financial services, employment, housing, etc., It seems I would be guilty of libel, especially if I'm making money of off my libelous statements.
I am not a lawyer, and not up on the maze of laws that governs this, but why can't credit bureaus be charged with libel or defamation of character when they do it?
I am not seeing the line you are drawing between the credit bureaus and real estate appraisers. Perhaps I am wearing my stupid shoes. Please elaborate on how funny math on real estate has anything to do with credit reporting at one of the bureaus.
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
Lots of things are worse. Genocide, perpetrated against a majority of the population. Nuclear war. Collapse of civilization leading to mass cannibalism in the cities.
Why should someone else do the research when you have not given a compelling reason to do so? This isn't a refusal to do research, its a refusal to engage in a fool's errand without a good reason. Insisting that your baseless claims are factual without proper backing and evidence to support them only further undermines your credibility. Then, as if to bring some credibility to your ludicrous claim, you bring up information that has no bearing on the subject (except maybe Santa Claus, since you're talking fairy tales and nonsense) and has already been independently verified by billions of sources. If you're so right and the rest of the world is so very, very wrong then please, enlighten us as to why, show us the logical chain which substantiates your conspiracy theory. Show us all wrong, and that you've somehow found out about a 500 year old banking and lending conspiracy to enslave the world, which the rest of the world has completely missed.
Yes, show us that its the rest of the world that is crazy, and not just you. Its not like you don't have time to show your work, what with all those hours you spend not-working.
The federal government is not authorized by the Constitution to regulate the credit industry. I hope no legislation of this nature becomes law because it would be unconstitutional.
Libertas in infinitum
One cannot have their identity stolen. But someone can use one's identity fraudulently or falsely. The same thing applies to copyrights, trademarks, patents, etc...
Intellectual property by it's very nature is hard, if not impossible, to steal. But infringing on rights, or using IP fraudulently is a different aspect entirely.
Libertas in infinitum
So, obviously, this is another case of where government regulation is bad for the free market. I mean, no credit reporting agency in a truly free market would oppose the right of consumers to freeze their own credit reports. The first one that did would lose so much business to another agency, right?
</sarcasm>
Easy. I'll field this one.
Mortgages (first, second, third, ... ) are based on LTV - Loan To Value. Most lenders will go to 85% (or some other arbitrary number. Generally higher if your credit is solid and you're proven to be stable).
So, if the client is mortgaged to $187,000 and they want an additional $23,000, their house "needs" to be valued at $247,000 or above. So if you can get an appraiser to stamp a value of $250k on the home you can even lend them an extra couple thousand for incidentals. How's that thing go? 3) ... Profit!
If the house is actually worth $225 or thereabouts on the open market, you've just buried them right around their eyeballs, but hey, if they're even slightly in a position to pay off the loan the banks win.
Banks don't like people like me. I pay things early and I pay them in full. I borrow only to further strengthen my credit score and to give me more free cash flow. That's why the games begin. Payment holidays, extensions to my credit limits, further loan offers, etc. All designed to push me over that magical brink where my debt load takes over my income and I spend all my days working to pay my minimums and their interest premiums start rolling in. The further buried a bank can get and keep you the happier they are. Pay your 3% every month and your credit will be increased until you don't know what to do with the money any more.
Banks are in the business of money and they want to start people early. It can actually be easier in a lot of cases for an unemployed college student to get a credit card than a full-time employee out in the workforce. Sure, the limit will be low ($500-1000 in most cases) but it's enough to get the person used to using it and, inevitably, maxing it out. Once they finish school the limit gets increased.
Why do they do this? Because they want to get you into that rut before you're smart enough to learn how to use their system against them. They want to get and keep you in the sub-prime class so they can walk all over you and make you feel like you're not worthy of any good deals.
I work in sales. Sub-prime clients are, I hate to say, some of the biggest pushovers in the marketplace. They're conditioned to accept whatever's shoved down their throats in the interest of rebuilding their credit. Know the problem with that? All their debt is at such exorbitantly high rates of interest they can never get out from under it! Their DSR's (Debt to Service Ratio's) are so finely balanced with each new loan that any straw that breaks will throw the whole system off kilter and put them right back where they started with overdue loans, credit agency phone calls and the whole ball of wax. It's disgusting.
I try my best to talk to friends and family in a non-confrontational, non-judgemental way about how to manage and maintain a good credit score but sadly human nature and their own habits tend to take over and they wind up sobbing about how badly their situation sucks.
The system is designed to get and keep people down. Banks don't make their money off the rich; they make it off the working class ignorant.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
I went cash only from the get-go... I read about the credit system and things going on back in high school. I also tried to stay relatively anonymous when it comes to any sort of data collection from companies.
Well the effect is that at 30 y/o with a decent job *everyone* wants a huge deposit from me for anything. Cell phone companies want $400 down to be on contract. No one is willing to give me a credit card... I can't even get a dept. store credit card. I never got any card offers in the mail period until I signed one of those cigarette surveys in a bar to get a free pack of smokes for my friend. Though unfortunately Chase felt I didn't have good enough credit.
I don't have bad credit... I have no credit. They all say there isn't enough of a credit history to extend any credit to me. Pretty weird in my book considering I know people in deep debt who can get cards and such.
I finally just got myself a prepaid credit card so I can make purchases online. The lame thing about that is it costs money to fill the card and they charge transaction fees.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
I'm curious. You present a cash-only style of living. Do you have a mortgage for your house?
I haven't ever (purposefully) opted into the credit world, for various reasons. I do have a direct deposit to a checking account. As usual I receive lots of waste paper with my statements each month, which is shredded and recycled with all the rest of the paper waste which our postman delivers. I usually glance through the boilerplate crap that is often included so I was vaguely aware when my account got (unsolicited) "overdraft protection". As I never pass checks except at the teller's window to withdraw my cash, I didn't really feel that it would apply to me. One time I showed up a week early and withdrew my cash, due to an inadvertant temporal displacement. The teller didn't notice the fact that my check was post-dated or mention the account balance to me, but handed over the cash with the usual alacrity. I could almost hear Nelson Muntz the next week when I got the overdraft notice. $25 plus five bucks a day. I know I should be scourged for suggesting this, but I think a Federal Law requiring deliberate acceptance of "services" rather than a stealthy "opting in" should be crafted. However, since I haven't paid for a share of the government, (and we ALL KNOW voting doesn't count) that will never happen.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Didn't one sport (I forget if it was baseball or football) sue fantasy leagues, claiming that all statistics about the league were the league's "intellectual property"? I wonder how that same claim would play out if several hundred people got together, and filed a class action against the credit reporting agencies, claiming that the individuals' info was their "intellectual property".
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
I suppose you're not exactly clear what interstate commerce is, exactly.