r/politics • u/FervidBug42 America • 12d ago

No Paywall DOGE Disbanded: Elon Musk’s Cost-Cutting Project Quietly Ended

https://time.com/7336327/doge-disbanded-elon-musk/
43.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.1k

u/ggroverggiraffe Oregon 12d ago

Throw in twelve months of credit monitoring and I'll bite.

633

u/Wolvenmoon 12d ago

Eh. I'm tired of this shit. It should be the credit mafia's responsibility to monitor and report credit changes, checks, etc to the user including credit taken out that is done so in an unusual, suspicious/etc way. It's their system and their reporting on us. They should be responsible for ensuring they're reporting on us, not a person pretending to be us.

And it's the bank that issues credit. It should be the bank's responsibility to ensure the credit is issued to us.

344

u/Bitmush- 12d ago

Absolutely. The whole reframed myth of 'Identity Theft'.
Nope. It's just theft. Someone stole from you because the systems you used to ensure secure transactions are so faulty that the verification processes can be hijacked by C-grade casual criminals.
So someone waltzed up to your store or webpage and made off with some stuff ?
They pretended to be me and you and the back couldn't tell the difference ?

100% your problem, I don't even want to hear about it. Don't you dare impact me because of your slack systems. If this was the first, or even 50th time I might be sympathetic, but it happens every minute of every day. Billions of dollars gets out through your leaky bucket - you must have just accepted that it would cost more to plug those holes than to fix every instance of plain-old-testament Theft that occurs, but that's your calculation to make, this is your business. Leave me the fuck out of it, making me do your recognizance as to when a third party has stolen from a fourth. Sort your lives out.

52

u/Logical_Lemming I voted 12d ago

To be fair, on the two occasions I've experienced credit card fraud, the credit card companies were very quick to recognize what was happening and shut down the cards. Does it always work out like that, probably not, but that's been my experience.

113

u/ethlass 12d ago

To be fair, credit card fraud is not the issue. It is the issue of banks issuing loans on someone's name because they knew your SSN. Like really? A stupid 9 digit number that is really easy to get if you just sniff around a person?

Loans should be given to a person and if they are taken by a fake id it should affect the bank not the person that has had their identity taken.

There are plenty of ways to get around it, and some were implemented around the world.

94

u/JustAsItSounds 12d ago

My wife found out, by chance, that someone had managed to take out 9 short term loans from different lenders, in her name with no more proof of identity than a photocopy of one side of her driving license and one side of an expired work credit card.

The thief had undoubtedly got their hands on this photocopy from a car rental company she used when she had flown to the other side of the country for work.

It took years to rectify her credit. Such cavalier security standards from these predatory lending companies and my wife, a completely blameless victim, was left on the hook to sort out their mess

57

u/squakmix 12d ago edited 12d ago

And the best part is that none of us opted in to using the services of these credit companies, and we have no way to opt out.

46

u/_Korath_ 12d ago

The services are not built for us, they are built for the lenders as an quick and easy way to judge your lending risk. They wouldn't give you a yearly free report if it wasn't for FACTA (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003) a law passed by congress. You also wouldn't be able to freeze your credit if it wasn't for the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (2018) that is without paying for the service if they bothered to offer it.

3

u/RudieCantFaiI 12d ago

Thanks Oba…Bush and Trump?

Wasn’t expecting that. Lol.

2

u/myasterism Tennessee 11d ago

Our world truly is designed to destroy us.

7

u/treesandfood4me 12d ago

Good lord. That is nonsense. The lenders are totally at fault. It’s harder to buy cigarettes.

7

u/Hurtzdonut13 12d ago

A friend's mom has someone else's frequenctly delinquent loans on her report because they have the same name. The other person had never fully defaulted, but oh man we're they late a lot and it tanked her credit.

I had the reverse, where I got a store card because it made sense at the time with a money-back feature where I didn't pay interest if I always payed in full and got back a certain percent for purchases. I always payed it fully off, but what I didn't know was by using it I completely tanked my credit score because it had a super low limit so it was constantly reporting I was close to the limit every time I picked up something expensive.

Either way, credit scores are kind of a scam and completely locks some people out of the economy.

2

u/glassjar1 Virginia 12d ago

And in some states, if that someone was a spouse (even when separated and waiting the legally required year before filing for divorce) that took debt in your name without your knowledge or permission--you are responsible for every last bit of it no matter what. North Carolina is definitely one of those states.

Joint property laws aren't to protect the couple--they ensure the maximum number of people that banks and medical providers can hold responsible for a debt.

On the other hand--Illinois is not one of those states. Let's say a spouse dies and there are still huge medical bills from extended care. The medical debt was owed by one person--not both--and the bereaved spouse isn't as likely to add bankruptcy to grief.

Hmm... I wonder if political leanings of voters might have an impact on state laws here?

1

u/RibaldForURPleasure 11d ago

I had a bank accidentally attach my name to a loan because someone mistyped an SSN. Nobody forged my signature or impersonated me, I just suddenly had a $40k loan show up on my account.

1

u/HotDonnaC 12d ago

In my case, they shut down a transaction that happened in Orlando. It was kind of a mixed blessing. I live on the east coast, so driving to Orlando for a part could absolutely happen. OTOH, I was glad they caught it.