Credit Ratings Affect and Outrage Many

Star Tribune ^ | March 13, 2003

[wallcrawlr]

Credit ratings are flying high these days. Just last week, Delta Air Lines said it is testing a system that will use credit ratings and other information to screen passengers and weed out potential terrorists. The news put new emphasis on the practice and created a public outcry.

[wallcrawlr]

...and I have to pay to get it.

[danneskjold]

you could take out a loan to pay for the report, but then if you're credit isn't good enough...

[NYDave]

What in God's name does ones credit rating have to do with terrorism!?! If you buy a ticket with a credit card, your payment schedule is between you and the bank, not the airline. If you pay with a debit card, the airline gets paid directly from your bank account. What does on have to do with the other? We are getting very silly and dangerous in this country.

[danneskjold]

you could take out a loan to pay for the report, but then if you're your credit isn't good enough...

argh...I hate that mistake...

[asformeandformyhouse]

1...2...3...4...5

Just counting the seconds til one of the "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" crowd chimes in.

[max61]

Credit checks are easier to justify than anal probes.

---max

[Michael Barnes]

Not if it's a San Fransisco terminal...

[NYDave]

<"Just counting the seconds til one of the "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" crowd chimes in.">

Exactly. Guilty until proven innocent. Just wait until we turn into a cashless society and the gov will control everything. If they don't like you (a person "of interest" to us) you won't be able to buy a quart of milk.

[On the Road to Serfdom]

Bernstein questioned how a credit score could predict that a customer's home would be hit by a storm or that the customer would be in an auto accident. Scriber said insurers still haven't made a case to support that proposition.

If if it didn't have any correlation companies would not use it. Someone who rips off credit card companies and other creditors will be more likely to rip off insurance companies (staged accidents, make their car dissapear, etc.).

[HassanBenSobar]

Suppose you knew the answer. Would you publicize it for all (including potential terrorists) to know?

[GYPSY286]

Let's say, hypothetically, that my company downsizes, I lose my job and its many many months before I get another one and my credit rating has gone south. A company hires me and part of my new job is to travel. The airlines check my credit and refuses to issue me a ticket. I can't perform my duties in the new job, so I lose my job.

[NYDave]

<"Suppose you knew the answer.">

Maybe I'm missing soemthing here. What was the question?

[bigfootbob]

What's next piss tests? Welcome to a spin-off from the hugely successful war on drugs.

[Cicero]

According to early stories, the 19 terrorists who hijacked the planes on 9/11 indulged in various kinds of credit-card scams, which may be where this business is coming from. And the records showed peculiar transfers of funds. It could conceivably be possible to use credit records as ONE way to identify persons who might be security risks. The problem, of course, is that the data is questionable and innocent people are bound to be caught up in bureaucratic snafus and find it very hard to the computerized records corrected.

If I thought competent people were in charge of this operation I wouldn't be so worried about it. But it will be managed by incompetent federal bureaucrats with job security, courtesy of little Tommy Daschle's amendment of Bush's original bill setting up the agency.

Unfortunately, that applies to any method used, such as profiling of Arabs. But profiling at least would be more direct and effective.

[tahiti]

"...the new screening system of airline passengers set up by the Transportation Security Administration."

"The airlines check my credit and refuses to issue me a ticket."

You make a good point.

However, the real rub is that it is your government, violating your 4th amendment and 9th amendment rights that is the culprit in your lost job scenario, stated above.

If Delta or any other airline wishes screen their customers using a credit check, that is their business and they can risk whether they will gain or lose passengers with that screening process. (that is essence of the liberty of owning private property and the workings of capitalism)

I presume you and others on this forum are a tad hypocritcal and disengenous when you object to this mandated method of government screening of citizens, but do not object to the search and seizures that "federalized" employess are doing at this very moment at U.S. airports without probable cause and a search warrant, which the 4th amendment requires.

[mushroom]

Farmers Insurance tried to raise my rates this year because of a supposedly bad credit rating. Turned out that my credit rating was great (as usual) but they didn't have my SSN and couldn't check with the credit bureau without it. Farmers new the SSN was required but made no effort to get this information before upping the rates. I wonder how many of their customers just paid the extra amount created by this fraud?

Credit ratings shouldn't be allowed to be used for any other purpose and the credit bureaus should be more clearly regulated. As it stands, they can include any erroneous information in your file without fear of repercussion.

[observer5]

"Delta Air Lines said it is testing a system that will use credit ratings and other information to screen passengers and weed out potential terrorists."<p.

This is really ballony. The guys who flew the airliners into WTC had great credit ratings.

[Orangedog]

My problem with this is that the people who think using credit scores for more and more purposes are people who have never had any kind of issue with a credit rating. This is the "nothing bad can happen to me" crowd who refuse to believe that a lot of people end up getting their credit hosed because of something stupid brought on by actions they had little to no control over. You get laid off, the industry that all of your work experience is in is gutted, you have to take a job for half of what you you were making, and the bills start getting paid late. Or better yet, see what happens when a waste-of-life lawyer talks your wife into taking everything you've worked for and sticking YOU with all of the bills because....well, because she can! Having bad credit makes you a financial lepper. Now someone with a spotless driving record can get creamed because the insurance industry doesn't like your FICO score?! The coming collapse in the financial markets and the resulting depression is going to bring a lot of people down a few notches. Maybe when a lot more oxen are gored, people will stop thinking that practices like the ones of the insurance and credit reporting companies are not such a good idea.

[observer5]

"Credit checks are easier to justify than anal probes."

No credit checks are easier to justify than PROFILING.

[On the Road to Serfdom]

I was responding to the insurance comment. In your example you would have been shown to be irresponsible in not saving enough of your income. When you buy on credit you promise to pay back no matter what, not just if you keep your job. You broke the promise. Does that make you bad? Only somewhat, not as bad as if it was inteninal on your part. Does the goup of people in your category have a higher rate of insurance claims? With out even looking at the data I am cerain the answer would be yes. Thus you might pay more for auto insurance, just like men pay more than women.

I don't think the airline would kick people off for bad credit alone assuming their credit card is approved or payment verified. I think they are looking at cetain patterns that suggest some sort of scam that terroists have been known to use to raise money, and then investigation further. But even if an airline was stupid and only let people with good credit fly with them, they are a private company and should be free to make whatever policy they want, event if it does not make business sense.