"How Facebook Can Hurt Your Credit Rating" pcworld.com

[modeltrains]

Heads up, gang.

This news needs to be spread far and wide and this action stopped dead, stone cold dead.

While looking for some other info, found this.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/246511/how_facebook_can_hurt_your_credit_rating.html

How Facebook Can Hurt Your Credit Rating
www.pcworld.com
Analysis: Bank on it -- Financial institutions are checking social media profiles to identify credit risks. It's time to ditch those deadbeat friends.

And it is being reported in more than one of the reliable news places.
https://facecrooks.com/Internet-Safety-Privacy/how-facebook-can-affect-your-credit.html

"According to reports, bankers are hard at work on a tool that would allow them to analyze a person’s credit worthiness based on their online profile.

So, what would happen if a bank gets access to your social network profile? Well, for starters, they’re going to get data that they normally wouldn’t be privy to. When a person applies for a credit application, there are certain pieces of information that banks cannot ask for, such as marital status and race. This is perfectly reasonable, especially since it’s illegal to discriminate against certain groups. However, with access to a person’s social media profile, they can get easy access to this information without having to specifically ask for it."

PC World Magazine says this news source is reliable.
https://www.betabeat.com/2011/12/13...friends-might-just-sink-your-credit/?show=all

"Mr. Rose was just spitballing, and his idea seemed innocuous enough. But there’s a nightmare scenario: if banks learn how to use social media, they could gather information they aren’t allowed to ask for on a credit application—including race, marital status and receipt of public assistance—or worse, to redline segments of the social graph.

In other words: choose your online friends wisely, for they may one day determine your APR.

Lenddo, a Hong Kong-based microlending startup incubated in New York’s FinTech Innovation Lab, calls itself “the first credit scoring service that uses your online social network to assess credit.” The first thing Lenddo asks for is a Facebook account; then it wants access to Gmail, Twitter, Yahoo, and Windows Live. The Observer was given a respectable score of 470. But when we tried to apply for a loan, we were told “you need at least 3 connections with scores above 400 in your Lenddo trusted network.” (We wouldn’t have been able to get a loan anyway: Lenddo is only available in the Philippines, although it recently hired an ex-Googler to head up the Americas.)

The company’s algorithm is proprietary and secret, said CEO Jeff Stewart, but the primary metric is what Lenddo knows about the people you’re friends with. “We think that in the age of the internet you should be able to establish your reputation and your identity through your social graph, through your on- and offline community, and use that to get access to financial products and information,” he said.

If Lenddo sees one of your best Facebook buddies took out a loan and paid it back, there’s a good chance you will too. “Our backgrounds are in machine learning and pattern recognition,” Mr. Stewart said. “It’s some serious math.

“There’s no reason there shouldn’t be thousands of engineers working to assess creditworthiness.”"

And that's the punchline:

"...if banks learn how to use social media, they could gather information they aren’t allowed to ask for on a credit application—including race, marital status and receipt of public assistance—or worse, to redline segments of the social graph."

Remember, Facebook is a CORPORATION, not a commune.

‎"Facebook, Inc. operates as a social networking Website. It enables members to look up friend’s Web pages, as well as share photos and videos. The company also provides messaging services among its users, as well as mobile applications for Java-powered feature phones. Facebook, Inc. has a strategic alliance with The Nielsen Company. The company was founded in 2004 and is based in Palo Alto, California with sales offices in Hong Kong and Singapore."

https://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=20765463

And we know what big corporations think about the rest of us.

 

[fyrwrxz]

We have met Big Brother and he is us. (apologies to Pogo)

 

[dlazarus6660]

1984

 

[modeltrains]

Okay, I've now spread the news far and wide and fulfilled my role as reporter.
From here this ball is in the activists' court.

 

[micrometer]

I've never used Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and I never will. Thanks for providing more confirmation of my choice of not doing so being correct...

 

[Astro-Baby]

Same as micrometer - dont use it for the obvious reasons.

I was on the web early, almost at inception since my job back then was related to the web.

I came so some conclusions about it back then and made some predictions to friends- every one has come true.

Its a kind of 1984 powered by people - tryranny of the majority. Thats why I dont use social media and even limit my emails, always use a nom de plume or run in silent mode on stuff.

Its just good sense not to blat details out anout yourself - you wouldnt post your name, age, address, picture and personal stuff on a billboard by the side of trhe road would you ? Why do it online.

 

[troj]

What I love is these places that ask for access to your account, so they can go rifling through it.

-Kevin

 

[wilsotr]

I've never used Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and I never will. Thanks for providing more confirmation of my choice of not doing so being correct...

What!? You don't USE those!? Then obviously, you're a credit risk .... get out of here. Come back when you've learned to act like everybody else.

< cynical rant off >

 

[rocketsmith]

The sad thing is, in the not too distant future, not having a social media presence may in fact be presumed to be a reason not to give you credit, much as the fact of having no credit is as bad as having bad credit to most institutions. Having no social media presence will mean there are not enough metrics to assess whether one is creditworthy. These institutions are trying to limit outside risk as much as possible. The internal risk taking is another matter altogether.

The truth of the matter is, from a sociological standpoint, if you have bums for friends you are probably a bum yourself. So why would a bank loan money to a bum? We may not like it but lenders don't know us as people anymore so they are looking to any means available to make judgements. The way around this is to do business with small local banks and credit unions.

 

[Gary Byrum]

I was only on FB for about 2 years and after getting totally fed up with all the stupid crap and changes that kept leaving the doors open to my account, I finally bailed. I saw all of what modeltrains mentioned, coming down the pipe. I lived just fine before FB and I'm doing just fine without it.

 

[LW Bercini]

I work for one of the 3 big credit companies (i.e., Equifax, TransUnion, Experian). We are forbidden by the Fair Credit Reporting Act from collecting and reporting non-financial data about consumers.

That said, banks and other credit-granting companies are not constrained by such laws. They may gather the financial data from us, but are free to pull in other public data as they see fit.

BTW, credit-granting organizations have been using market analysis tools about people for many, many years - long before social media existed. For example, IIRC, the practice of Redlining goes back to the 1930s and was finally made illegal in the 1960s

 

[sodmeister]

I've never used Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and I never will. Thanks for providing more confirmation of my choice of not doing so being correct...

Me neither ! TRF is the only "social media" I do, and that`s all I have time for and it`s all I need

If I have time to waste , it `s not going to be on that nonsense.It`s working very well for me so far !


Paul T