> The sharing of credit worthiness information is the cornerstone of your ability to get credit. It's not a hidden extra, it's not something you can choose not to get, there's no "opt out". It's a condition of doing business with the credit grantor.
No, this is only true because the law does not meaningfully restrict abusive contracts. Sure, a credit card issuer should [0] be able to ask some agency for information on your credit risk. It does not follow at all that the issuer should have permission to give information back to the agency.
[0] Even this is debatable. One might reasonably argue that the use of inscrutable conditions for the issuance of credit cards is discriminatory and should, as a matter of public policy, be disallowed. As a simple example of how this could work, all credit card issuers could be required to instead issue prepaid cards with identical terms, benefits, and usage from a merchant’s perspective, and credit could be an opt-in extra feature.
How would 'some agency' have anything to say about your credit risk if issuers of credit weren't feeding them information about your credit performance?
What's more bothersome to me is that these companies are scooping up every bit of information they can about me and selling it to anyone. Did I consent to TheWorkNumber? I definitely did not with the first few employers / payroll processors who have sold out my payroll data.
I Google my full name and the first hit is some background check site that shows my birthday, most of addresses I've had since the mid-90s, every family member I've shared an address with since 1999, information on two vehicles I presently own and one former, and that's just the bait to get someone to pay for whatever else they know about me...
> my birthday, most of addresses I've had since the mid-90s, every family member I've shared an address with since 1999, information on two vehicles I presently own and one former,
Your existence in the world isn't a secret. Every scrap of that is public information. You have a postal address to get mail, you register your car with your state to pay taxes on it, etc.
Well, your point overlooks the points I was aiming for.
1. Any of those scraps of data have negligible value by themselves, but when they're aggregated and traded their value is vastly increased.
2. I don't have any choice in how those scraps of data were originally gathered and shared. Should I not to have an address? Pay my taxes? Register my vehicles?
At the individual level nothing stops me from maintaining a list of people I think are trustworthy or noting prior acts for evidence of such.
There’s no opt-in required because you’re not the one providing anything. The customer of the credit agency, the company extending you credit, is opting in to share what they know about you.
> At the individual level nothing stops me from maintaining a list of people I think are trustworthy or noting prior acts for evidence of such.
> There’s no opt-in required because you’re not the one providing anything. The customer of the credit agency, the company extending you credit, is opting in to share what they know about you.
Until you get too large, powerful, and rich, then the government regulates you. This is the purpose of regulation, to control the abusive use of power.
Nothing is really “explicit” when it’s buried in pages of small print legalese. If everyone just read (forget understood, just read) everything they ever signed or agreed to thoroughly, life would slow down significantly.
Take a look at a CC application and see where the information on going to a CRA is. I just went to a random online store and started a CC application. Down in the legal section, right in the first couple of sections, clearly visible:
"Credit Reports: You agree that we have a right to obtain a credit report in connection with our review of your application and after we establish an account, to administer the account. You agree that we may report to others our credit experience with you. At your request we will provide the name and address of each consumer-reporting agency from which we obtained a report about you."
Was it plastered across the very top of the form in bold type? No. Was it "buried in pages of small print legalese"? No.
Many CC contracts I have signed (not US or EU banks) have explicit section and additional (mandatory) signature specifically for sharing data with credit reporting company.
No, this is only true because the law does not meaningfully restrict abusive contracts. Sure, a credit card issuer should [0] be able to ask some agency for information on your credit risk. It does not follow at all that the issuer should have permission to give information back to the agency.
[0] Even this is debatable. One might reasonably argue that the use of inscrutable conditions for the issuance of credit cards is discriminatory and should, as a matter of public policy, be disallowed. As a simple example of how this could work, all credit card issuers could be required to instead issue prepaid cards with identical terms, benefits, and usage from a merchant’s perspective, and credit could be an opt-in extra feature.