[HN Gopher] Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns
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Tell HN: Equifax free credit report dark patterns
For years, I have been obtaining free annual credit reports
(annualcreditreport.com) which must be provided by law. Recently,
for the first time, when I tried to obtain my Equifax report, I was
prompted for an email address and a mobile phone number, a new
requirement that apparently cannot be bypassed. The other two
bureaus, and Equifax previously, confirmed identity by asking
knowledge based questions. They do not need my phone or email for
anything. Next, trying to obtain the report by phone instead of
web site per instructions, I got to the point where I entered my
ZIP code on the phone keypad, the voice menu system correctly
repeated the number back to me, but every time I press 1 to
indicate it is correct, the system acts like it got an invalid
response and only gives me the option to enter further information
by voice, not by the phone keypad. Just as with my phone number and
email, they do not need to record my voice to provide my report. I
wrote a complaint to the annualcreditreport firm earlier this week,
no response yet.
Author : PopAlongKid
Score : 83 points
Date : 2024-02-23 19:49 UTC (3 hours ago)
| gfs wrote:
| Credit reports are a racket. I've barely had any luck obtaining
| one of my reports from the site in the past few years. I'm at the
| point where I think I will freeze my credit.
| davidjade wrote:
| We've been living with credit freezes for over 10 years now,
| ever since a bunch of fraud incidents (thanks leaky IRS). Only
| ever have to deal with it when we need credit (rarely), putting
| in for a temporary lift. Bonus is we get zero refinance or CC
| offers in the mail.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| I recently had someone submit a fraudulent loan application
| using my information. I went through the process of freezing
| immediately after, and I would highly recommend you do it. It
| was the easiest thing possible. I just went to the links on
| here https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-freeze-
| cre... and was done in like 10 minutes for all 3.
| biftek wrote:
| Everyone should freeze their credit by default, it's very easy
| to unfreeze when you actually need to apply for something.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Ideally, that would be the default state, and you'd request
| un unlock when you need to borrow money.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Please raise a complaint with the FTC and CFPB. Regulators are
| the only path to success.
|
| https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/
|
| https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/
| eek2121 wrote:
| Banks and data companies are moving to biometrics for proof of
| identity and you may have hit this.
|
| At least 3 credit card companies I use are signed up/using a
| biometrics/information provider. (they wouldn't tell me who,
| despite federal disclosure requirements -- I only knew they were
| using someone because my current accurate info was replaced by
| info from 7 years ago)
|
| There are companies trying very hard to find out everything from
| your hair color, facial features, and skin type to your email
| address and connect them all for everything from identity
| management to advertising. They are working on getting your
| payroll data directly from your employer as well, so you will not
| be able to self declare income in the future. You will know when
| you run across the companies that use these providers because
| their data is often wrong or out of date and they usually ask you
| for a video of yourself holding your id to update it and may even
| give you a problem then.
|
| The amount of information these companies are collecting and
| piecing together is scary -- one company is tracking major
| website comment activity and tying it back to their core data
| sets which has your IRL info.
|
| This means that in the future, you could be denied employment, a
| mortgage, or an auto loan because of something you said last year
| in Twitter.
| nicholasjarnold wrote:
| It's literally out of control. We cannot have a healthy
| democracy in a systematically surveilled society. When people
| understand they're being actively and constantly surveilled
| they tend to self-censor their expression. When we do not have
| a healthy and honest exchange of expression (something that has
| arguably been being eroded for a long while now) it will
| fundamentally erode one of the pillars of our society. Kudos to
| CA and IL for attempting to do something about this
| legislatively.
|
| As a citizen with some modicum of hope for the future I will
| vote for strong privacy protections. As an engineer I will not
| work on products that progress our state of surveillance
| capitalism (yep, realize the constraints here). I hope others
| agree and act accordingly.
| nickff wrote:
| I'm not sure that these requirements are actually due to
| Surveillance Capitalism; Government KYC requirements may be
| the culprits, as they're steadily on the rise (especially
| with all the recent sanctions).
| theturtletalks wrote:
| You're forgetting about the KYC/AML laws that lets these
| companies do that.
|
| They can deny bank loans, auto loans, etc based on comment
| history and then hide behind KYC/AML laws. Under those laws,
| they don't have to provide any reason whatsoever for the
| rejection and can operate without impunity. They are the judge,
| jury, executioner and the government have them that power.
| PeeMcGee wrote:
| For those of us not up to speed on finance TLA's: KYC (Know
| Your Customer) AML (Anti-Money Laundering)
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| Are they tracking anonymous comments or how does it work?
|
| This should be illegal in all countries.
| rolobio wrote:
| Their data is pretty much always wrong for me. I share my
| father's name, so whenever I do a credit check they ask me
| about the homes I owned before I was even born...
| Unfortunately, my family has moved a lot and I can't remember
| all the addresses.
| breadwinner wrote:
| Remember, this is the company that could not keep the data they
| already have safe [1]. And now they want more info from you, so
| that they can store even more info about you (carelessly) and
| sell it? This is what happens when you have less regulation.
|
| [1] https://www.csoonline.com/article/567833/equifax-data-
| breach...
| olliej wrote:
| I still love the whole "we know our data is wrong, but we sell it
| as fact, and know that that information is used to impact cost to
| you, but you're required to constantly check with us, or pay us
| to tell you when we're lying". Yet somehow this isn't extortion,
| and somehow it's not illegal defamation.
|
| The moment credit agencies started running their own monitoring
| services, it seemed like they were openly admitting that they
| were defaming people. I still do not understand why this is
| legal.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > confirmed identity by asking knowledge based questions
|
| I'm not sure I feel good about this either. Isn't your mother's
| maiden name, the street you grew up on, your first concert, or
| your pet's name all information that is pretty much well known by
| now. Primarily by you (royal) for taking those stupid social
| media quizzes.
| jerhewet wrote:
| I actually prefer this over the other currently available
| options (Install our app on your phone so you can click
| "Accept" ... and give us access to scrape everything off of
| your smartphone!). I just select random questions from their
| list, and use the same answer for each of the questions. If
| they don't accept the same answer for each question, then I
| conclude I don't need whatever it is they're offering as badly
| as they think I need it, and move on to another entity or form
| of communication (if you won't make this convenient for me,
| then fine -- you can send me snail mail correspondence).
| dylan604 wrote:
| I used my password manager to fill in those questions with
| passwords, but that proved difficult when I had to provide
| the answer to the question over the phone to some rep.
| thedanbob wrote:
| It is mind-blowing to me how incompetent the credit agencies are.
| I just tried to check my credit was frozen everywhere and I
| couldn't log into Experian. Tried "forgot my password"... oops,
| "can't find your username". Tried entering my email, "please
| verify with your phone number"... oops, "doesn't match our
| records". Tried "verify another way" and it asked for my phone
| number and last 4 of my SSN. Hey, that worked! That should not be
| an option...
|
| And guess what, my account lists my username, email, and phone
| number exactly as I entered them. But I still can't change my
| password since that requires verifying my current password, which
| they've apparently forgotten. What an absolute joke.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| You are not their customer.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I'm completely blocked out of equifax ever since their hack.
| I've even sent them a certified letter and no response.
| Impossible to call them too. Just says sorry contact us... ok
|
| Been annoying when trying to have a credit check run and the
| place uses equifax and they deny based on frozen credit. Like
| ya, I know. Could be worse I suppose, could be open and unable
| to freeze.
| toast0 wrote:
| Try opening a new account with a different email. Worked for
| me when I tried after going through the process.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| I think it's the opposite of Hanlon's razor: _Never attribute
| to stupidity /incompetence that which is adequately explained
| by malice/evil-intent_.
| arkadiyt wrote:
| I continue to request my reports via certified mail to the
| annualcreditreport address, and this time for the first year
| Equifax just ... didn't reply. Completely ignored my request.
| gottorf wrote:
| Do you have your credit frozen with just Equifax, or something?
| Just trying to think of vanilla (i.e. incompetence rather than
| malice) reasons to explain this. Of course, it goes without
| saying that they all suck...
| gzer0 wrote:
| Submit a complaint via the CFPB. They most certainly will then
| respond.
|
| I had an issue with Early Warnings Services (it's a lesser
| known Chex System rival). I wanted to request my consumer
| report, but Early Warning Services had perhaps some of the most
| absurd, nonsensical, dark pattern to even request it.
|
| You have to go to a separate hidden web page, that then leads
| you to a PDF form that you must fill out. After you fill out
| the PDF, there is a line within that PDF that gives you a link
| to a consumer portal. You're supposed to create an account, and
| then, navigate their 2002 era portal, upload the PDF, and wait
| for a reply from them.
|
| In the midst of all of this, early warning deleted my account
| and when I called, the IT support had no clue why. I was fed
| up, and then filed a CFPB complaint. Within 2 days they
| responded and sent my consumer report.
| cheesemayo wrote:
| Giving them the benefit of a doubt, it could be a first (or half)
| step in adding a level of security around credit information. It
| wasn't long ago that they were breached (not though user identity
| checking! by a software vuln!) and they're probably still
| smarting from it. Maybe this is part of a half-baked auth scheme
| or notification system.
| dheera wrote:
| They already have your mobile phone number because banks and
| credit lines you take will report that information to them.
|
| They ask you for your phone number to verify you, not because
| they want your phone number when they already have it.
|
| If you want to avoid them knowing your "real" phone number and
| leaking that to marketing agencies, the best thing you can do is
| get 2 mobile phone numbers, one you actually use with your
| friends and family, and one you provide to businesses and stick
| that SIM in a beater phone and keep it silent.
|
| I HATE this system and wish we had some GDPR-like law for
| preventing sharing of such information outside the corporation
| you provide it to, but such is the current state of the system in
| the US.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I just stick with Credit Karma for keeping up with my credit
| report. Yeah, they want to sell me loans and shit, but it's easy
| to ignore/block those ads and just get the data I'm looking for.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| The problem is, as you articulated, they are required _by law_ to
| provide credit reporting information about you to you. They have
| no incentive to do this because they make their money by
| collecting and selling data about us.
|
| They have every reason to use this reporting requirement to
| collect more information about you.
|
| They have every reason to conflate credit _freeze_ with credit
| _hold_ , and confuse consumers in order to extract regular
| payments from them.
|
| They have zero reason to keep sensitive data about you secure. In
| fact, they have every reason to promote fear and uncertainty in
| the public that their sensitive personal information is in the
| hands of criminals as a growth opportunity for their industry to
| sell _credit monitoring_ services.
|
| They have successfully convinced the public that _identity theft_
| is a separate and distinct crime done exclusively by one person
| to another rather than simply fraud that they are aiding and
| abetting.
|
| Consumers and credit reporting bureaus have a fundamentally
| adversarial relationship that no legislation can harmonize. They
| exist because they do serve a purpose for finance, which is to
| give an indication of how much money they can make lending money
| to someone. Regardless, this reporting does not have to be done
| by for-profit corporations. This can just as easily be done by
| non-profits or government agencies. Although these are not
| perfect, they are free of the perverse incentives driven by for
| profit corporate structures.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Their continued existence is pernicious and a policy failure. We
| should be able to replace them with a competitive privacy
| preserving scheme that wipes those businesses out.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Quit complaining. If your personal data is leaked, and your
| credit and financial life is ruined, at least you get a year of
| free credit monitoring. Sheesh. /s
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(page generated 2024-02-23 23:00 UTC)