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Equifax wiped out his credit score — and a little-known policy means he can't get it back (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 3 days ago by RandAlThor@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Equifax refused to restore his credit score or explain why it dropped to zero, until Go Public started asking questions.

Only then did the company point to its little-known policy: If a credit file sits inactive, the consumer may be labelled "unscoreable" and their score reset to zero. Tregear says the last time he checked, before it disappeared, his score was around a more respectable 700.

Go Public has since found a major flaw in consumer protection rules — that there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.

Consumer advocate Geoff White says that gives credit bureaus too much power, with no transparency.

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[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 2 days ago

We're so powerless in situations such as this. In the USA, I made a bank transfer to my landlord (around a decade ago) that never hit his account. Every day for about five days, I called my bank to get help. Each person said they'd released the funds for transfer. Each day, nothing changed.

On or around the fifth day, someone finally told me that OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) had seized the funds. The best I can guess is that this was due to my landlord having an Arabic-sounding name (you know, cause "terrorism").

I went on the OFAC website and downloaded a form to contest the issue and documented everything. The letter I received in response said they had no record of the case number that I submitted. I realized, in that moment, that I would have to invest far more time, energy, and emotional hit points than I was willing to spend for $1500. I changed how I paid rent and got money orders that I then manually deposited in the landlord's account at a local bank branch for the rest of the time I was there. I didn't pursue the case. I wrote it off as a loss.

This is when it really, truly hit me (though I'd known viscerally for years) that I could not stand up to the government. I'm not advocating not fighting back. I'm advocating picking your battles. I felt very small and meek when this happened. I only gave up because I value money less than I value privacy or speech or time (I'm privileged to be able to say this, I know). In terms of fighting bureaucracy, we're completely alone and have to be extremely dedicated or basically cornered, as this guy is, to make it worth it to fight back. And even then, it's highly likely that, like this guy, you won't be able to get justice.

[-] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 days ago

I love how the "little known policy" is that they can do whatever the fuck they want because there are no regulations on credit scores. So great!

[-] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 days ago
[-] LostWon@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Its provisions dictate that the president can sidestep any checks and balances on his power once he has abused his authority so many times that no one can keep track anymore.” Trump added that while his opponents may try to challenge his executive order in court, the loophole also states that by then he will have achieved his immediate political aims.

This must have been based on what he was doing in his first term, but damn. That's way too on -the-nose. It's like the current administration took notes from a piece that was supposed to be too absurd to take seriously. Probably not the first time with the Onion though. (And there was also the escalator thing with the Simpsons.)

[-] BioDriver@beehaw.org 11 points 2 days ago

Remember when a few democratic reps wanted to pass laws for better oversight on credit bureaus and got shot down by both parties? Pepperidge Farms remembers: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4120

[-] Stamets@lemmy.world 64 points 3 days ago

It is kinda funny how often people will give shit to China for it's social credit score but we're not too fucking far off from it here in the west. When you can't even get housing because of a credit score... it's kind of a fuckin' problem.

[-] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 25 points 3 days ago

Except ours is based on our ability to repay debt. Which is fucked.

Not saying China's is any better, but at least you're rated on your actions and words. Not some capitalist view of a person's worth.

Both are fucked.

Anyway, credit scores should be abolished.

[-] axby@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

TL;DR: how could you ever trust anyone to define a social credit score based on actions/words? And how can you offer debt without having something like a (better implemented) credit score?

I think I understand where you are coming from, assigning people a “worth” based on something financial is messed up. Ideally there would be some way to instead reward people for good things like being polite to people, and not littering. And possibly to penalize people for engaging in bad behaviour.

But even if I trusted the current government to implement this with the right goals, I would never trust future governments not to abuse this system. I don’t think I’d really trust any sort of group to do this right. I’m already disappointed enough with our current democracy (in Canada) for not getting rid of first-pass-the-post, and I’m skeptical that much will change with interprovincial trade barriers (why not sooner?).

But the idea of a better implemented credit score to track only severe abuse of debt doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to me. Obviously the current system is messed up and has major problems, but I feel like it could plausibly be fixed and done in a reasonable way. I think debt to buy a house (and maybe sometimes a car) is generally a good option to have. And I don’t know how you could offer this without tracking people who don’t pay. (Though maybe I’m wrong, maybe just going based off of income history is enough.)

But yes, the current system is ridiculous. People should be rewarded for never needing debt, not disqualified from getting future debt without notice. And it should be much easier to track and fix problems on our credit score. And things like cell phone bills don’t seem worth being affiliated with credit bureaus. I think most people would be better suited to prepaid plans if they were options. And I feel like financing phones is a really bad thing, people don’t realize how expensive they are. I’d rather if all my utility bills just collected some deposit instead of potentially being able to ruin my credit if a bill gets lost in the mail after I moved out. (But this could be too expensive for a lot of people, so again the credit score seems to have a purpose).

[-] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

But even if I trusted the current government to implement this with the right goals, I would never trust future governments not to abuse this system. I don’t think I’d really trust any sort of group to do this right. I’m already disappointed enough with our current democracy (in Canada) for not getting rid of first-pass-the-post, and I’m skeptical that much will change with interprovincial trade barriers (why not sooner?).

Amen!

But the idea of a better implemented credit score to track only severe abuse of debt doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to me. Obviously the current system is messed up and has major problems, but I feel like it could plausibly be fixed and done in a reasonable way. I think debt to buy a house (and maybe sometimes a car) is generally a good option to have. And I don’t know how you could offer this without tracking people who don’t pay. (Though maybe I’m wrong, maybe just going based off of income history is enough.)

It's funny because wealthy people don't have this problem. They want a loan for several millions? No problem! If they can't pay back the loan, it's not their problem though. It's the bank's problem. But hey, let's deny a loan for a lower-middle class worker for a $15k used car to get to work, or deny them the ability to have shelter because they fell on hard times once in their life ages ago.

You know what I mean? Sure there should be a way to find out of a person is trustworthy to pay back a loan, but at the same time we shouldn't be living in such an unfair system.

[-] aceshigh@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

That’s an interesting concept but standards are different, so what does a social score mean anyway? For example, I value high eq/empathy above all. Lacking that but being a billionaire won’t increase my score toward you even though you might be rated high because you own a house, car, business etc.

[-] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Well in case of China, it's how good they view you as a citizen. And that's based on their own evaluation templates. And it's probably based on how early you get to your job and how well you perform for glorious China.

[-] villasv@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Isn’t this social credit thing mostly a hoax? They said they would do it but I’ve never met a Chinese person that confirmed they had this up and running

Edit: yeah mostly not a thing, Wiki got receipts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

[-] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Must've been edited by members of the Chinese government. (/s) ;)

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 days ago

Except ours is based on our ability to repay debt. Which is fucked.

How so? It seems to be exactly what lenders want to know before lending. Are you judging a system by its exceptions?

[-] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

You know what's funny? Credit scores are a fairly new thing. If you wanted to rent an apartment, all you needed were good references. You couldn't be denied based off some obscure score that a couple of companies have a monopoly over and can wreck your whole life if THEY mess up with no chance of recovering.

In a world where everything works on debt now, these companies have too much power over people.

[-] Clasm@ttrpg.network 0 points 3 days ago

It's moreso a rating of how much potential cash they can extract from you over a lifetime in the form of interest.

That's why, if you always pay off your debt balance before interest accrues, it actually lowers your score.

[-] pishadoot@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

It does not lower your credit score to pay debt off early, where did you get that idea from?

Over time if you show that you aren't delinquent on payments your score goes up. That's the vast majority of how a FICO score is calculated.

Other things that impact your credit score are the LENGTH of time you have established credit (aka don't close your oldest credit card for most people, even if it sits unused), the total amount of available unused credit compared to your income (ie if you have a ton of high credit availability cards sitting there - you could run up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and disappear to a non extradition country being a risk), and lastly your overall utilization of your available credit (ie you want to be using 10-20% of both your available credit both on individual cards ("revolving credit") and your overall total revolving credit across all your cards together).

The last one is a bit harder to explain, so here's an example:

-you have three lines of revolving credit (credit cards)

-one card has a 1000 limit, one has a 5000 limit, and one has a 10,000 limit

-ideally you're posting a balance of 200, 1000, and 1500. That's between 10-20% on each card, and it's between 10-20% of all cards in total.

Other things that impact your score (negatively) are bankruptcies, late bill payments, things in collections, and having a high debt to income ratio.

At no point will you be penalized for paying debt off early. The only thing that can possibly affect your score in that sense is if you ONLY have a loan, no revolving credit, and you pay it off - now you have no credit utilization at all, which potentially could ding you a bit, but not much. That's also not very common - most people have several credit cards and few loans, if any.

[-] Clasm@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 day ago

The only thing that can possibly affect your score in that sense is if you ONLY have a loan, no revolving credit, and you pay it off - now you have no credit utilization at all, which potentially could ding you a bit, but not much. That's also not very common - most people have several credit cards and few loans, if any.

Ah, that would happen to be my exact experience, oddly enough. I don't have any credit cards and payed off my car loan early because the bank was playing games with automatic payments.

[-] pishadoot@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Dang, sorry to hear that. How much did your score dip? Anything around 25, maybe up to 50 points is probably not a critical issue. Dips like that, and especially ones that relate to credit checks (like when you're shopping for a loan or a new card) go away in a couple months (I'm not sure about your case. Without active credit utilization you're an "unknown" factor, which is risky to the lenders). I'm not even sure why your score dips when someone does a hard credit pull - overall my frustration with the system is the lack of transparency and the fact that there's zero regulation or accountability for the credit bureaus.

Best practice is to open a no-fee card with points/cash back that aligns with your normal spending habits, use it for general purchases that you already make today, and pay the balance off in full every month after you get your statement.

As long as you don't carry a balance it won't cost you a penny in interest, and you'll reap the card benefits and improve your score by establishing and maintaining a good credit history.

The thing is, MOST people carry a balance. That's why credit companies are able to afford giving you 5% cash back, travel bonuses, etc etc - just the fact that those things exist, on top of all the overhead required to maintain/issue credit cards tells you just how many people are carrying a balance and giving interest to the companies.

If you have the discipline to not charge more than you earn and to not miss payments, you'll get all the benefits without any of the costs. On top of having card bonuses (5% on groceries adds up!) you get several other benefits, some of which I will list here:

-your money is shielded in part by the credit company. When you charge a card, you're not spending YOUR money (yet), you're spending Capital ONE/Chase/whoever's money. What that means is that if a business does wrong by you (sells a faulty product, doesn't provide the service you paid for) you can issue a charge-back. That's a pretty serious thing, if companies get a high number of charge backs they can lose their ability to receive credit payments. (Chargebacks can be useful but they're not always the best option). Also, and maybe more importantly, your BANK account information is shielded from all the businesses that suck at keeping your information safe. Your credit card gets compromised, you see your statement and somebody's buying gas and fast food with your credit card, the company will remove the charges and issue you a new card - if someone gets hold of your debit card or your bank login, it's MUCH harder to get your money back, if not impossible.

-in case of an emergency you can carry a balance - it offers some cushion from financial ruin. The downside is that now you're paying interest, but if it's a choice between paying interest for a couple months vs not having a working vehicle, or not being able to pay for an emergency vet bill, the interest is worth it imo.

-cards have all kinds of benefits besides the flagship cash back/points. Extended warranties, concierge services - every card comes with a booklet of other benefits that most people don't read, but you really should. I've used extended warranties several times alone when for example something breaks 26 months after I bought it, but the warranty expired at 24 months and the card extends the warranty a 3rd year.

If you do get a card you will probably have a fairly low balance at first. Couple thousand dollars, so it's really easy to get over that 20% utilization fast if you're not paying attention - which can hurt your score! Utilization doesn't carry nearly as much weight as paying your bills on time and the length of your credit history, but it does matter. So be mindful of that. If it's working out for you then six months later open another card that gives you different benefits (a card for utilities vs one for groceries, or one for travel, etc) and start breaking your bills up so you can maximize benefits. Some cards give you a cash bonus if you spend a certain amount within 90 days, so if you know you're going to make a big purchase then you can open a card, put that big purchase on it, get the $200 back or whatever, and pay it off.

Unfortunately there's no way to avoid the credit system in the USA, you're SO disadvantaged if you try to do so. Housing, loans, job applications, security clearances (Federal work), all take it into account. Best thing you can do is to make the system work for your benefit.

I don't pay anything in interest and I pay pretty much everything on credit, because I live within my means. My credit score is ace because I've been doing it for years.

If you have any questions let me know, happy to discuss.

[-] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Don't forget the even more nebulous and secretive insurance scores that are even tied in to data brokers!

On the other hand, the Chinese "social credit" is mostly western fabulation. And what little implementation of that actually does exists is actually mostly used to track and punish corporations and governmental bodies.... So there's that.

[-] HonoredMule@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago

Ah, so eastern social credit is the public(ish) policing private business. And that is very bad -- by which of course I mean it's targeting the people who most manipulate western public opinion.

But our western financial credit is private business policing the general public. "This is normal."

[-] anonymous1979@lemmy.ca 20 points 3 days ago

there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.

Gee whiz, I'm sure these companies that carry so much responsibility will take that responsibility with pride and do their absolute best on giving honest and accurate data, and protect that data in the best way possible right? Like for example, they wouldn't use some ex music teacher to become CTO which would lead to the biggest loss of US customer data (including social security numbers), ever, right?

RIGHT?

Fuck equifax, literally everybody working at that company should be jailed.

[-] Psythik@lemm.ee 10 points 3 days ago

This happened to me too. I'm actually relieved because my credit score was in the shitter. Now I'm back to a clean slate.

[-] RandAlThor@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

How did you get it back?

[-] Psythik@lemm.ee 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

By doing the same thing the person in the article did: not using my credit. I'm also currently "unscoreable". As far as I'm concerned, no credit score is better than a bad one, so I'll take it.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 12 points 3 days ago

I think it is hilarious that people aren't more scared of where this path inveitably leads and has already lead, I passed the point of being scared long ago and now all I have left is to laugh.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 days ago

So edgy

[-] Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Keeping people in perennial debt: Those who won't work for the carrot get the stick.

[-] Daryl@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

How can this post created in the 'Canada' community be cross posted into the 'Canada' community? Somehow the same post got 'created' twice in the same community.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago

The "crosspost" label is more of a flag that there is another post with the same URL somewhere. If I posted the same article in a community multiple times, it would have multiple "crosspost" labels for that community. I agree that this could be done in a better way

I assume there was a bug or loading issue where the user posted this post twice. Maybe their app thought it didn't go through the first time and tried posting it again.

Since there is discussion on both posts, I might leave them both?

[-] RandAlThor@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

I think I might have an explanation. Lemmy seems to have an issue with CBC articles for some reason. When I post them, it doesn't show that it's "posted" but "hangs" in the posting page. So I clicked it to submit again. It doesn't happen with any other site. Just CBC.

[-] Daryl@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

The discussion in both could get confusing. Someone may look in the wrong post for a follow-up. Any way the two posts could get combined, since they are both by the same author? Or maybe warn the posters in one tat it is going to be deleted, and refer them to the second post?

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

That's a good point, it looks like one of the other admins has locked the extra post and redirected users to the post with more votes. In the future I'll do something similar based on which one was posted first

[-] Clearwater@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I'm in the US but had a similar thing happen to me when I was first getting credit and had no history. I figured it would be a safe bet to apply for a card with my bank at the time, and they denied me citing my credit score: 0. At the time I just laughed and applied for another card elsewhere, who did actually accept me. After a few months I checked and saw I was assigned a real score somewhere in the low 700s.

I'd understand dropping a score after 10 years without credit, but the 2 in this case is very low.

this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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