Time to Vent! the way the credit system is scored is completely VAGUE and elusive!

[Anonymous]

Someone needs to overhaul it DEFINATELY! anyone agree? Is this system this way for the gain of monetary profit or is it just all in my mind? It is very elusive at best.. and I am really wondering why the government has not stepped up to do something about it. Fico is the only one i know who has came close.

[Donks3369]

Plain and simple the answer is money.  While it is clear the system needs to be changed, this just isn't going to happen.  The credit lobby is enormous and the little guys (us of course), don't have much power to stop it.  We can call our congressman or senator, but ultimately they will go where the money is.  How can we compete with that?  These rules were never put in place for our benefit and I don't see them going away anytime soon.  We just need to figure out how to play the game better.  But it seems as if we figure out the game, they change the rules.  Nobody said life is fair.

[Anonymous]

the gov't would only screw it up worse!  could you imagine?!

it's a bad system and it's probably not altogether fair.  mix of credit, buckets, blah blah blah...too complicated

i just pay the bills on time, don't over extend myself and pray i'm not the victim of ID theft and i do ok with a few minor glitches here and there

[Anonymous]

OMG!! I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO agree on the "mix of credit " thing... thats the main artery of elusion that reallllllllllly throws people out of any type of pragmatic comprehension! And yeah the bucket thing too! Once this system / paradigm collapses on itself.. there will be a more user friendly interface!

[Anonymous]

I agree fully, especially in these times were the credit grantors aren't credit worthy. First the algorithm that FICO uses is obsolete and weighs too heavily on proportion of credit used to credit available and not enough on on time payment history. It also doesn't account for income or income stability, two very important factors for determining ones ability to repay debt.

Recently, almost all of my card carriers reduced the credit available to barely over  my balance, further screwing me up.

I often run cards up because my hobby is rehabbing houses and I don't carry high limits. I pay all of my cards off completely at least once per year, yet my scores hover anywhere from 670 to as low as 540 and I'm NEVER late I have a stable income of over $150,000 and never carry more tha $30K in CC Debt. Go figure

Congress should step in and police this matter and maybe now they will.

[Donks3369]

I know what you mean.  No system is perfect, but I'm sure we can do better than this.  Why should you be penalized because you don't have a certain type of loan.  Maybe you pay cash for things such as cars and don't want to carry a payment years.  You shouldn't be punished for that.

[Anonymous]

I don't want congress running things, I just am asking for proper oversight.

I must be honest FICO is what FICO is. One thing FICO isn't is a good basis for assessing a persons ability to repay a loan. The real problem is with the lenders, who are too lazy to do due diligence themselves. In the days before FICO, a person developed a relationship with a credit provider, building credit with timely payments. Now, everything hinges on a arbitrary number that is not necessarily reflective a person's lifestyle or income stream.

Thank God I have a long standing relationship with a great credit union who understands my unique situation. They are always appalled when the pull my score, because it doesn't reflect what's on my credit report or my history.

I'm a service connected, disabled vet, a paraplegic, and FICO just doesn't fit people like me. I'm probably in the top 2% of the US in creditworthiness because my income is guaranteed by the government for life. Not many can say that in this day & age.

[Anonymous]

I have a question. When did we get asked if we wanted to be part of this credit rating system that seems to have complete control over our lives? I don’t remember getting a letter asking if I wanted to join up. They didn’t even ask my permission to use my social security number & collect all of my personal financial information. Then they sell this information for a profit and I don’t even get a cut of the proceeds. On top of that, they can make my life miserable by their interpretation of my personal financial information. They can make it hard for me to get a loan. They can make it so my interest rate is higher than it should be. They can make it hard for me to rent a house. They can even make it cost me more money to pay off another organized crime syndicate, (INSURANCE COMPANIES) and they don’t even call me to get my side of the story. They just assume if a person doesn’t pay a bill or is late on a payment that the only reason is because you are an irresponsible deadbeat. The credit rating companies make billions of dollars a year off of all of us and they didn’t even ask if we wanted to play!
 
 I have good credit. I pay my bills on time. I can get a loan at a good interest rate. But I’m sick and tired of the stress. I want control of my life. I didn’t hand it over to them. They just took it. I got a credit card in the mail the other day. I didn’t order it, it just came. The letter that came with it said I was preapproved for a $300 credit limit & the card was already activated, so I didn’t have to worry about calling to activate it. Also I already owed them $179 in fees & charges for the privilege of having this card. I could start making the payments right away & if I were late they would report it to the credit rating service. Wasn’t that nice. I spent half a day on the phone to get rid of that card.

 Here’s what I think we, as the people of this great country should do to take back our lives. We should all destroy our credit. If everyone has bad credit, it would put the credit people out of business. Imagine the relief. The stress that would be removed from your life if you just didn’t care about your credit rating. If no one cared about protecting that precious credit rating. It wouldn’t have any meaning. We would have some of our freedom back. Nobody could use it against us. The 3 credit rating companies would go out of business, and if I felt the hospital should not be paid $2000 for 3 IV’s and an x-ray, I could fight them without them being able to use my credit as a weapon against me.
 
So let’s start a movement. Let’s take our lives back by paying our bills late. Let’s take control back from the people that stole it from us. RUIN YOUR CREDIT!
But we have to band together. We can take our lives back if we all work together.
What do you say? Let me know if this makes sense to you. Thanks for reading.

Edited to remove personal info.

Message Edited by llecs on 03-29-2009 03:38 PM

[Anonymous]

Every time you applied for credit, agreed to installment payments, or entered into some type of contract for payment for which you agreed to the terms (acceptance)-- It was in the disclosures, disclaimers, and fine print.

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@Anonymous wrote:
I have a question. When did we get asked if we wanted to be part of this credit rating system that seems to have complete control over our lives? I don’t remember getting a letter asking if I wanted to join up. They didn’t even ask my permission to use my social security number & collect all of my personal financial information.

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[CreditAble]

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gvk wrote:
They didn’t even ask my permission to use my social security number & collect all of my personal financial information. Then they sell this information for a profit and I don’t even get a cut of the proceeds. 

 I have good credit. I pay my bills on time. I can get a loan at a good interest rate. But I’m sick and tired of the stress. I want control of my life. I didn’t hand it over to them. They just took it.

If no one cared about protecting that precious credit rating. It wouldn’t have any meaning. We would have some of our freedom back.

So let’s start a movement. Let’s take our lives back by paying our bills late. Let’s take control back from the people that stole it from us. RUIN YOUR CREDIT!

What do you say?

 Let me know if this makes sense to you.

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There is a simple way to "opt out" of the credit scoring system.

Freeze all of your credit reports and cancel any tradelines that pull soft inquires. People who you have screwed can still report you to the credit bureaus, but nobody will be able to use your credit reports to deny you credit.

It is a simpler method than you have proposed and it does not necessitate defaulting on your financial obligations. Most here feel that they have a moral obligation to honor commitments to paying bills on time. I for one wouldn't screw a creditor just because I don't like the system.

Of course you won't be able to obtain any credit, and might have trouble getting utilities in your name without a deposit, while boycotting the system.

That would be the same result that you would have with your plan. The difference would be that you wouldn't be refusing to meet your contraction financial obligations.

As far as getting others to join your crusade, one or two people who already have trashed credit might. I have spent most of my life paying cash and did not have any credit files whatsoever. That was fine with me until I lost out on some really great investment opportunities. I myself have made a conscious decision to enroll in the system. I have been reaping the benefits these last 9 years.

Simply freeze your credit reports and you can instantaneously be where I was 9 years ago. You won't have to deal with the system anymore. :

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