this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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[–] clearleaf@lemmy.world 120 points 1 year ago (7 children)

A lot of people think social credit scores are something society can't function without, but they only started in 1989.

[–] 8bitguy@kbin.social 64 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I certainly have problems with the way current financial institutions operate, but prior to the credit score there wasn't a standardized, scientific way to assess lending risk. It was left to a good ol' boy process rife with racism, classism, and sexism. Sadly, we're better off with what we have now, as flawed as it is.

[–] hiddengoat@kbin.social 52 points 1 year ago (10 children)

There still isn't a standardized and scientific way to assess credit risk. There are three major companies, several minor ones, and all of them offer multiple products.

IT'S ALL A FUCKING SCAM. We just blindly accept random institutions compiling all of our data and telling a bank whether or not we should be given a loan regardless of our ability to pay it back. It has little to do with income anymore, which should be the only allowable metric. Don't want the risk? Get the fuck out of the mortgage business.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It was so much better before! When being a woman, or god forbid, being black, counted as serious criteria. Oh, and you best be friends with the banker. (Read the part, again, about being a white man, who was well accepted in the community.)

It's not a scam, it's a step forward. Time to take the next step.

[–] PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (23 children)

How do you know that those aren't factored in still?

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[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Just because it was worse before, doesn't mean we can't also make the NOW better, again.

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[–] Blamemeta@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If it was a publicly available algorithim, then Id believe you. But it ain't, so I'm suspicious.

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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 year ago

It seems to me it doesn't count risk. It counts profitability. It's why it drops when people pay their loans early.

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[–] hiddengoat@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (7 children)

At one time you walked into a bank, showed how much money you made, and got a home loan.

But that allowed too many Black people to buy homes, so credit scores were invented as a way to discriminate against people using a black box with no real published metric.

Yay for redlining under a different name!

[–] clearleaf@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's funny how the other person who replied to me said credit scores are actually the solution to racism. I think you're the one who's right it's just funny. I'd like to take this opportunity to say it's retarded that you can pay rent for years but not be approved for a mortgage with equal or lesser payments.

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[–] scytale@lemm.ee 97 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)

What I hate the most is how your score goes down for paying off a loan early. Getting penalized for actually being financially responsible is infuriating. I paid off my car less than 2 years into a 5 year loan and my score went down a couple dozen points. Just because they couldn’t get more money from interest.

[–] LdyMeow@sh.itjust.works 50 points 1 year ago (24 children)

Interestingly our poster here has put the reason, I hadn’t thought about it that way, but how valuable you are to creditors is what the score is. Paying off early losses then some money, so score goes down. Hilarious. What an amazing system! ☹️

[–] 13esq@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

The system isn't for seeing how responsible you are, it's for seeing how reliable you are.

They seem like similar ideas but they are quite different.

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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Damn that's really dystopian. It's a credit score that directly measures how profitable you are to others as a human.

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[–] SickPanda@lemmy.world 91 points 1 year ago (11 children)

usually I love to shit on muricans, But Germany has something similar. A private company called "Schufa". This private company secretly calculates your credit score (no one knows realy how they calculate it) which determines if you get an apartment (for rent) or not. Living in the wrong street already kills your credit score here.

If the Schufa doesnt have information about you, it counts as negative.

[–] Int_not_found@feddit.de 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As someone, who loves dunking on the Schufa, as any good German should. The Schufa-Score isn't nearly as insane as some American credit score systems. Having an registered checkingsaccount & no outstanding bills or debt payments is enough data to have a high score.

You don't need to repay debt to show, that you are able to.

[–] Comment105@lemm.ee 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Credit scores are the West's social credit system.

If we value our freedom from a controlling, oppressive system, then we should penalize the creation, selling, buying and usage of credit score data. And we should keep on top of it to include any emerging attempts to re-establish an equivalent system.

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I wish we Americans had more backbone to push back on corporate enshitification in general.

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[–] EatATaco@lemm.ee 45 points 1 year ago (10 children)

For 25 years I've only carried a debt on my credit card one time, and that was for a few months under special circumstances. I have a top credit score.

It's a stupid game, but it's easy to play.

[–] Polar@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why do Americans think you need to carry a debt to build credit? That is the opposite.

I put EVERYTHING on credit card, and pay everything off on time. Never missed a payment. My credit score was the highest it can be by the time I turned 21. I've never paid a penny in fees or interest.

[–] Letstakealook@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That's not what they said, and Americans, in general, do not think that.

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[–] criticon@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I arrived to the US less than 5 years ago and I have top credit score. I never carry a balance, open credit cards that offer a lot of credit, benefits and bonus to increase my available credit (I have about 6 or 7 cards at the moment) and just wait. In less than a year I already had 740 which was enough to get a car loan with 1.9% apr (lowest offered was 1.85%)

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[–] nodsocket@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You don't actually need a good credit score to get a loan. The only reason FICO scores exist is to reduce the amount of work banks have to do to investigate potential customers. However, many smaller banks are willing to do a manual underwriting, where they look at your history and make a decision based on that instead.

Obviously if your credit score is low that is indicative of poor borrowing habits which will probably be corroborated by manual underwriting. However, if you have no credit history at all, you will probably get a better outcome than if the bank only looked at the FICO score.

Look for community banks, which are very small banks that serve your local community. Those banks are far more willing to give customized service like manual underwriting.

[–] Furbag@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Better credit scores will definitely net you a lower interest rate, though. Zero credit history is a major liability for lenders, so even small banks or credit unions with private investors will want some kind of benefit or incentive for taking on an increased risk of default.

The real fucked up part about credit scores is that it seems like it should be something the federal government regulates, but they don't. For-profit companies do. And when they get hacked and expose all of your data so scammers can assume your identity for eternity, they can't be held liable or responsible. All of that just so lenders can feel safer about who they give money to.

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[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 22 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I was just considering this the other day.

Taking this logic to the extreme, wouldn't someone with liquidity but no credit score face serious issues towards accessing housing and services, as per the post?

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm in this boat and it kind of sucks. I have a lot of savings after a few decades being a programmer, but my credit history consists of nothing but a few late bill payments over the years - never had a credit card or a house or car loan. To rent an apartment I always had to get my brother or father to co-sign the lease, or else I would just rent a room from somebody (which usually never required a credit check). I can't get a credit card from a bank or even cards from stores.

On the other hand, it kind of doesn't suck since I have no debt whatsoever, and I just bought the house I'll spend the rest of my life in for cash. For the last fifteen years I've driven cars I bought for cash on eBay or Autotrader. There were times in my life when if I'd had access to easy credit I would have dug a big hole for myself, and the (very rational) unwillingness of anybody to lend me money saved from financial disaster.

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[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For the most part, it depends on the liquidity.

10k in reserves, you'll get a few chances.

10 mil in reserves, they'll let you fuck them. Rawdog.

[–] orrk@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

owe the bank 1million, the bank owns you

owe the bank 100million, you own the bank

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[–] GreenMario@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

FREE TO PLAY

(*Includes ~~Micro~~transactions)

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[–] patachu@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Abolish currency, revert to trading sheep and goats.

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[–] doctorcrimson@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

When Equifax had a major leak exposing personal information of millions of Americans I sent them a notice to permanently remove my data from use. To be clear, my Equifax score IS NOT frozen, it doesn't exist altogether.

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