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Saying "Wasted" On Facebook Can Affect Your Credit Score (ajc.com)
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: According to a recent report by the Financial Times (paywalled), some of the top credit rating companies are now using people's social media accounts to assess their ability to repay debt. "If you look at how many times a person says 'wasted' in their profile, it has some value in predicting whether they're going to repay their debt," Will Lansing, chief executive at credit rating company FICO, told the Financial Times. "It's not much, but it's more than zero." According to the Financial Times, both FICO and TransUnion have had to find "alternative ways" to assess people who don't have a traditional credit profile — including people who haven't borrowed enough to give creditors an idea of what kind of risk they pose.
According to lenders this makes me a credit risk.
I just wasted some n00bs in that FPS match, y0!!!
OH SHIT, THERE WENT MY CREDIT SCORE.... but at least I scored in the game!!! (but yet to score in real life...)
Please revert to the terminology of trashed. This is in relation to bug that was found in the social media freedom index. Testing so far reports it temporarily fixes the problem. Stay tuned for further updates.
The only winning move is not to play.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
has wasted their time.
Its possible to come up with algorithms that are statistically valid, but discriminatory. For example, in the US African Americans are on average lower income than whites,so it it is likely that average they are less able to repay debts. Anything that correlates with race might statistically be valid, but is racist and if done explicitly would violate all sorts of laws. How do you prove that you are not using proxies for race, or other protected classes in an analysis like this.
Systems that analyze the behavior of friends have a similar problem: people from disadvantaged cultures will have a more difficult time receiving loans, getting jobs etc, not because of what they personally did, but because of what people of their culture did. This is the basis of racism.
I was Wa$t3d last night.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Year by year "social" media seems to get steadily more antisocial. Why use it? You just end up being tracked and profiled like an animal and the information you give away is used by others against you. Why put yourself at such a disadvantage? Why give them that power?
I'm Irish, and yes, I find this very discriminatory.
For example, in the US African Americans are on average lower income than whites,so it it is likely that average they are less able to repay debts.
Why is that? If the loan amount was the same that may be true, but there's no reason why a less wealthy person can't repay a similarly small loan, any more or less than a wealthy person with a huge loan.
Rich people go broke too.
Everyone on facebood should say wasted. Let us see what happens then.
I'm one of the folks that knew early on facebook was utter crap and has never had an account. They apparently can't tell the difference between me and my father who haunts facebook.
Just ran a credit check and all three of them have me on my parent's discovery card - of which I never had a discovery card - and in fact don't have any credit cards. Unless you count my debit card - which has no credit.
My fico is low - despite having no late payments to any bills over five years - own a vehicle, in 14 years I'll own my home.I have no other debt other than my mortgage.
I guess if you aren't shoveling cash into credit card providers profits, you aren't credit worthy?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Why does anyone care about these credit scores?
I bought a house and simply use that for any personal loans for the rest of my life. No more applications, no credit scores, no fess or high interest.
Buy a new car, add it to the mortgage
Go on holiday, put it on the mortgage
Of course I budget properly and only spend what I can afford to pay back, but I haven't need needed, nor will need another loan ever again. Ever. Now I can get wasted as much as I like...
Agreed. Income is probably a factor, but net debt, and leverage are probably better indicators.
if you don't have a facebook account?
"Social networks" not "social media".
Please stop helping the outdated for-profit media companies using broadcast TV, radio and newspapers feel relevant.
Remember that movie The Social Network (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/)? its named that for a reason.
I'm in the exact same position. I'm 43 and working on buying my third house, no credit history. It's not impossible as the whiners make it out to be. Of course it's taken me 25 years and a lot of work to get to this point. I could not care less if my job sucks or I get fired
...are getting burned by publically spewing out their thoughts and life details? I'm cool with that.
"Lansing said FICO is working with credit card companies to use several different methods for deciding what size loans people can handle, and using non-traditional sources like social media allows them to collect information on people who don't have an in-depth credit history. According to the FT, both FICO and TransUnion have had to find alternative ways to assess people who don't have a traditional credit profile -- including people who haven't borrowed enough to give creditors an idea of what kind of risk they pose."
So this has a nonzero effect on your credit score, but for anyone with a legitimate history (aka any credit card or loan ever) the effect will be so small that it would be considered negligible. What the hell do you people want? If I was an employer looking up peoples names on Facebook, like is common these days, and found out that the person was posting pictures of getting high/drunk on a regular basis or posting really horrible comments, I'd refuse to hire them too. The same applies to credit cards. Some random person with no references walks into my bank and says, "Hey give me $1000, I'm good for it". What should my response be, seriously?
"Can you prove in any way that I can depend on you to pay me back?"
If you don't want to be judged by your social profile, make it private or don't fucking post it in the first place.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
obviously this is flawed for so many reasons.
"I just wasted xxx hours at the DMV waiting in line"
probably counts too, I imagine
Discrimination is only such if it's reasoning "because they're black, they can't pay."
If the determination is based on other reasons, it's not discrimination if there happen to be more people who are a credit risk in one group than another. In fact, this is pretty much guaranteed to happen as there are more ways for the groups to be unequal than there are ways for the groups to be equal.
We live in the real world here, we can't just pretend nice sounding things are true when they're not. There are more male criminals than female criminals. We're not all equal. That statement may be controversial, but that doesn't make it false.
How do you prove that you are not using proxies for race, or other protected classes in an analysis like this.
Simple: demonstrate that you also red-line certain white neighborhoods, or show how many white people you decline.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Being stupid enough to put your life online.
NOBODY needs "social networking" (which is actually anti-social - all the time wasted on that crap is not time spent actually being physically present with other real people in the real world) and yet it allows you to be bought, sold, analyzed, abused, propagandized, manipulated, etc.
I guess there will always be things like Facebook, because "you can't fix stupid" (cannot recall who said that, but it's a quote). Personally, I will not hire anybody who has a Facebook profile; I consider them too dumb to be trusted with my business.
Seriously, this is why any social media profiles should be private. Why would I want to connect with my employer or my bank outside of our business relationship?
Obviously, if you "wasted" an afternoon, then you are a greater insurance (auto, life, health, ...) risk.
I'm Irish, and yes, I find this very discriminatory.
Yes the Scots and Irish are always getting wasted so it definitely discriminates against them. Actually thinking about it since the Scots are all misers and wouldn't get in to debt because of the interest payments, it does target the Irish.
Maybe all top universities should study Perfection Wasted by John Updike, and encourage online discussion. Just watch the demographic change and the measurement become useless.
It was because he didn't have a proven track record of paying anything off. It makes plenty of sense when you think about it -- they don't know where the hell he got his house or cattle from, but if they see that he's paid a bunch of lenders back for various loans over his lifetime, they can surmise that he will probably pay back theirs, too.
Clearly they have never been to Ireland... Or the UK...
But is it more than 50%?
If I randomly pick people how likely am I to pick people who aren't going to pay?
The bank was literally throwing at me to get a credit because I have no debt and a good sum of money. People with no debt, are much more likely to repay a credit because they are not as likely as other to get a second , third or whatnot debt. I have to wonder why you were modded informative.
You are quite right to require non-discrimination, thanks for providing this insight, as I would generally accept any method that assesses risks reliably, like having no credit record. Everyone will agree probably, that we are talking about illegal discrimination based on inacceptable grounds, like gender, heritage or sexual preferences. Discrimination based on former ability to pay back loans should be acceptable, also discrimination based on income or presumed job stability, there will be a lot of factors we might accept. If there were factors which looked OK at first, but would in fact be discriminating in favour of straight middle aged white males, we should object to these factors being used, both morally as well as legally. Even with these proxy discriminations ruled out, there will be differences in your groups total loan acceptance rate, but you, as an individual, should get the same evaluation as anyone from any different group in a similar situation. There is a catch though. What if I told you that formerly, in the good old times, when actual people decided on your loan, these people might have been far more racist, mysogynist, homophobe and otherwise preferential than any current algorithm? I deem it rather probable, that any big company trying to earn money by lending money to you is rather more interested in this said money than pushing some ideology into the world. On the other hand there is one additional problem, are we able to evaluate the algorithms? Are we able to spot wilfull incorporation of proxy discrimination? Neural nets might be able to produce good evaluation results, usually they are built with no explanatory component. Expert systems are able to explain, but are we able to understand the explanation. Apparently we need better software, designed to be able to prove it is non-discriminatory. Furthermore, we probably should require this software to be transparent, enabling us, as society, if we think the grounds are acceptable. Thus we could lead discussions like this, is it acceptable policy to deny heavy drinkers a loan.
That's fine if you want to save up for 20 or so years to buy a house or are fine with the apartment life. Barring some serious income or lucky circumstances, most people need to get a mortgage to own a house before they are well into middle age.
The system is bullshit but it's mostly painless. Sure you have to jump through some hoops, but they are well labeled and don't really cost anything. You don't need to pay interest. As someone already said, a no-fee credit card that you pay off at the end of the month will build a credit rating just fine and doesn't cost you anything. Hell getting one and immediately shredding it probably builds a credit rating.
But if you lock-down your Facebook account properly, how can they have any idea if you're using the word 'wasted'? Do they pay Facebook for unlimited access or something?
The article doesn't even think to mention this, and I'm surprised no-one here seems to have mentioned it either.
I expect the algorithms are likely to be closely guarded secrets, because they are surely a big part of the way credit companies try to gain an edge over each other.
It sounds reasonable to me. It seems likely that it would be a predictor of the ability to repay debt, and it's something that, in some sense, people have the ability to choose, leaving them in control of the outcome.
With regard to race, I would be surprised if it was a useful predictor of the ability to repay debt. It would be a losing proposition to offer credit to someone solely on the basis of their race, and if credit history was available, I can't imagine that a person's race would usefully supplement this information in any way. Not that this would necessarily stop people from using it though, I guess.
It is because the marginals are smaller for someone with a small income. While rich people also make stupid decisions the combined effect of a stupid decision and an untimely accident/break-up/etc. will not be as big as it is for a poor person. I.e. the risk for defaulting is smaller.
Also statistically the rich person (if of working age) has a better chance to land a new job if the company where (s)he works is shut down.
While there are always outliers in any system credit rating works with statistics.
There's this plausible view of the future where everything you say and write will be monitored and processed, and will be followed up with actions. Those who perform the actions will have no responsibility for it. If their actions are unsuitable it's not their problem. You should have controlled your words better to avoid triggering action. It doesn't matter how good or bad their filters are, you just have to adapt.
It could be different. Imagine a future terrorism watchlist where you're able to sue for damages just for being listed there. Those maintaining the watchlist better watch out. They can't afford many false positives. Also, you can send out a lot of ambiguous messages. It's their responsibility not to be misled, not yours. If they're wrong, they pay through the nose. If you take a plane they can x-ray your belongings - if they're willing to pay the price. If they're wrong, it costs them. You can even say you're carrying lots big bombs, they still pay. You're not responsible for them not seeing a joke, even a bad one.
That should illustrate how responsibility is currently being divided between those being monitored and those doing the monitoring. This division of responsibility doesn't seem problematic when you have a small commercial company offering its services on a free market. It becomes ugly whenever the organisation doing the monitoring has power over you. It doesn't even have to use it.
"All of this food would be wasted if I hadn't donated it to soup kitchen"
"Ah, I wasted a great opportunity for investment"
"Time spent volunteering for charity organizations is not wasted"
Why is my credit score so abysmally low!?
Now that it is used for other than credit we have to be given the option to opt out.
I never consented to others making money from my name and information like this.
I would make it a felony to use it for other than issuing credit.
First day on job as president.
Second day hunt them all down and hang them.
I think in general these credit agencies believe as well as employers that a person's social media site lends a glimpse into a persons background. I know of several companies that typically scan social media sites on potential and current employee's for potential issues. Its kind of like having a secret mic in all your personal conversations for these companies. I am surprised at how many people cant manage to filter themselves better.
because you're not buying a Car and a House, which are both debt. These are things every person wants. Used cars break down a lot (I'm stuck driving a clunker, so I speak from bitter experience). With few exceptions nobody who can afford it doesn't buy a new car every 3-5 years because of this. As for a house if your an American you don't rent because you want the equity on the home. Also, that equity is a large part of what improves your credit score
Now, you might still be low risk. You might live next door to your job and not like travel (or travel without a car). You might have a job in San Fransisco and not be able to buy a house For the car they can't tell and for the house they know you're pissing away equity. They don't care why in either case.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Wasted my time.
The trouble is you're not buying a car and another house. Old cars break down a lot. For most people they start getting little nuisances at the 3-5 mark and getting stranded at the 7-10 mark. So for most folks not buying a car every 3-7 years is a sign of something not right. As for houses, you're not building any equity. Property is too good an investment opportunity to pass up for people who aren't millionaires. If you're having trouble with credit you're probably not a millionaire :P.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Also if you want to but a bicycle for $1100 and your credit limit is $1000 then just go an pay $200 into the account *BEFORE* you buy the bike, that way your account won't exceed the credit limit.
That depends on whether the terms of use of your credit card account allow payments in excess of the current balance. I've read mine, and they happen not to.
I am one of several people with the same name in the same state.
How do they know which is mine?
I don't want to be associated with some of those other people with the same name.
On the other side of the desk, the bank was thinking "Why does someone who has piles of cash need a loan?" and the answers that they thought of were:
- Stock leverage
- Business purchase/expansion
Both of which are a hell of a lot more risky than "I need cash to pay for my car because it gets more to/from my job".
So, the bank probably did the right thing, in the absence of better information.
As for the last few sentences, why do you feel *entitled* to use someone else's money?
If you use the word "wasted" AND you are incapable of locking down your FB account, you probably ARE likely to default on your debt.
Ding Ding Ding!
/ EndOfThread.
This is precisely why oversharing and posting everything as visible to Public is a terrible idea. The more you put out there for everyone to see, the more it can be used against you (and it will be).
I don't post on Facebook much, and my "friends" list is limited to people I am actually friends with, and not every Tom, Dick, and Harry that I run into on the street. About 70% of those people are in the "Aquaintances" bucket, and since everything I post is "Friends; except Acquaintances," even they don't see anything I post. The remaining 30% are my family members and close personal friends with whom I interact on a more or less daily basis anyway, obviating the need to post much to Facebook.
Everything I post to /. is also AC.
Buying a $1,100 bike on a $1,000 card may require presenting both carrot and stick:
Getting a bigger credit limit only to use it for larger payments just means you cost them more.
This biased source claims the opposite: $3 of every $100 you spend goes to the banking industry. In fact, American Express started out without revolving credit at all, instead requiring cardmembers to pay in full each month and relying on these swipe fees.
There's a VERY high correlation between Facebook friends of mine who get wasted and the group of people I would never lend money to. I can totally see that one's inability to control spending/payment would be highly related to one's inability to resist drugs.
my understanding of the way it works here in France is that banks, et. al. can lend you as much as they choose to but they can't collect debt that you can't pay if they've loaned you more than you can pay back with 30% of your income. End result is that the banks balk at lending that exceeds that 30% soft limit.
Then how do student loans work? Where I live, child labor laws ensure that someone fresh out of high school (which the French call lycée ) is unlikely to have enough work experience to have a large enough income to afford a loan to pay for university.
I have a note in my Credit File that simply says "Thanks for the Gift" as I don't believe in credit - it's against my religion.
Because of this I have a credit score of Zero, which is exactly what I want.
my understanding of the way it works here in France is that banks, et. al. can lend you as much as they choose to but they can't collect debt that you can't pay if they've loaned you more than you can pay back with 30% of your income. End result is that the banks balk at lending that exceeds that 30% soft limit.
Then how do student loans work? Where I live, child labor laws ensure that someone fresh out of high school (which the French call lycée ) is unlikely to have enough work experience to have a large enough income to afford a loan to pay for university.
Sit down first...
University is almost free here, so there is no need for student loans.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Which companies require a Facebook account, and for what positions other than social marketing? And are these companies that Slashdot users would want to work for, compared to companies that find employees through LinkedIn or Stack Overflow Careers?
So if you're a fan of Black Flag, you pretty much have already ruined your credit score?
I think it is a very general problem with machine decision-making. We have laws that prevent using certain protected characteristics (race, gender, etc) in hiring, loan, housing or other decisions). An automated decision making system could act on things that were proxies for these protected characteristics in a way that would not be immediately obvious. This provides a way for organizations to (intentionally or not) get around anti-discrimination laws.
Man, in so pissed that the cheese went bad in the fridge. It's totally wasted.
The $3 (or whatever) transaction fee goes to the transaction processor for handling the transaction. The interest payments (if any) go to the lending institution (for actually putting up the money that gets loaned out).
Not all of the transaction fee goes to the transaction processor. A fraction goes to the lending institution. And it is from this fraction that lending institutions are able to offer cash back or travel rewards to those cardmembers most able to repay.
And, more than 1/3 of a year's net salary in the bank... hmm
That means you have about half of a reasonably-sized emergency fund. Not hugely impressive.
Just another reason not to use facebook
in the US African Americans are on average lower income than whites............but is racist
Not this myth again. The richest blacks turn out to have a lower IQ than the poorest whites in the US. If that's 'raysiss', then facts are racist. See the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Having non-anonymous social contact with real-world people probably positively correlates with being able the repay a loan, so the credit scorers would probably disagree with you.
How are they getting access to your profile(s), unless you let them? If you are doing that, its your own damned fault.
Headline: "Saying 'Wasted' On Facebook Can Affect Your Credit Score"
Abstract: Saying you're wasted in social-media posts is correlated with worse credit scores.
Article: I have no idea; I'm not reading that crap.
I just skimmed the first 150 or so posts, and Not One discussed Facebook, "wasted," or credit bureaus snooping Facebook.
How about we save the discussions of credit bureaus and credit card companies' methods of maximizing profits and get back to the actual FA?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
it may still not be worth it from the perspective of the lending institution to give you a higher credit limit if you are regularly not paying them interest.
If a lending institution gives me an $800 credit limit and denies me an increase to buy an $853.86 TV, it won't see its share of the swipe fee on that purchase. Instead, I'm more likely to buy it with a checking account through the Cirrus or Plus debit card network, which has a much lower swipe fee, and probably even from another bank on principle.
I scour the internet for stories about people who aren't thrifty with their money and responsible with their debt. Each time I post, I end with "Another wasted opportunity to save and pay down debt."
No wonder my credit score has suffered. Man, if only I was as smart as those guys.
I drink and am a little heavy ... does that mean I shouldn't be able to get a reasonable loan rate even though I've been gainfully employed for 15+ years w/o a gap ?
The people who work at these financial institutions are all whores anyway. Put that on your profile.
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_
I wasted my time readin...oh, damn...
the Facebook fucktards are selling 'meta data' on users for profit
So this is what America has stooped down to? It is time to end the entire credit and personal data marketing corruption in America!
It would be interesting to know how much money they wasted on this stupid idea of counted the wasted word... OMG my credit score is dropping while I'm typing this in. So much good credit scored has been wasted. Oh, no, again!
One can learn a lot about someone via their social media profile(s). Was dating a girl briefly and when I checked her profile out, it was full of "last night was fun" from other dudes. I can see why that same investigative scheme can be a useful tool for creditors. I say make it harder to get loans. I know too many people with no interest in paying their debts because... They are low-life scumbags.
I would think there would be a big difference between people that say - "I am sooooo wasted" and people that say "I companies wasted X amount of dollars on Y" in their posts.....
It's nice to see this and feel a smug sense of vindication.
Credit rating system isn't all that transparent, so it feels sleazy. But do we really want a transparent system, especially one with social connections?
Because Klout is a lot like that now, and China is preparing to implement something that effectively is a state run Klout system. Which is a terrible idea by the way.
Oh hey, there's even a relevant XKCD...
https://xkcd.com/1057/
Sometime back I read that Collection agents are using FB to track customers;
Casteism
So if one is e.g. discussing how much money the government wasted, and wasted, and wasted again will lower the posters credit score? Primarily, the money was wasted on the banks that use the customer scoring in turn.