[arciini]

Given there are 3 credit bureaus, is there a way to avoid having a credit score at one of the credit bureaus? I think that's a way that we as consumers could try to increase competition in the field.

I did some Googling and it didn't seem like there's an easy option.

[atrettel]

There is no way to opt out of credit reporting. Lenders report the information to the credit bureaus, typically all three of the big ones, so if you want no information reported, simply close all your credit cards and loans, etc. and place credit freezes on your credit reports.

I don't think that "increased competition" will work here. We are not customers of the credit bureaus. We are the product. The customers are lenders and other people who need your information. From the lenders' perspective, this is all working out fine, largely because the onus for "identity theft" is placed on members of the public as individuals rather than on lenders to accurately verify applicants' identities before extending credit. As many people have pointed out before, "identity theft" is a misnomer designed to pass the buck onto individuals. Ideally, it should be the lenders' responsibility to prevent criminals from misusing your information and to make things right whenever a criminal tries to use your information fraudulently, but right now the onus is placed on individuals.

A better solution would be to have higher standards for identity verification by lenders. That would shift the burden onto lenders to actually verify people's identity before extending credit. Some lenders actually do a pretty good job of verifying people's identities before extending credit in my experience, while others just seem to accept the information given uncritically (as far as I can tell!). High industry-wide standards should help solve this (either voluntarily or mandated by law).

[ISL]

A statutory fine of $50k per compromised account would get the attention of the credit bureaus. (It might drive them out of business, but it sure would get their attention.)

[foob]

For reference, Equifax leaked the personal information of 147 million people (myself included). Multiplying that by $50k is over 7 trillion dollars. In actuality, they were ordered to pay up to $700 million in total which works out to about $4-5 per person. I agree with you, but the gap between what you propose and the status quo is staggering.

[precommunicator]

So yeah, in this case Equifax would go bankrupt and other companies would get very valuable lesson to spend more money at security side of things. I see no issue here.

[ClimaxGravely]

I don't want to get ahead of myself but currently that seems to be having an effect on Vancouver AirBnB's as we're starting to see craigslist posts like these : https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/17t6tes/posted_o...

[LoganDark]

$50k seems at least four or five orders of magnitude too low to be of any concern to them

[dghlsakjg]

$50k per record affected, not per occurrence.

[MikeDelta]

And legal conequences for the board members.

[ssgodderidge]

I feel like this has to happen. They operate like a private utility company, with little to no other options.

Imagine if they were like password manager apps? We could evaluate all of them, choose what we wanted, and migrate whenever something happened.

[IggleSniggle]

The problem is that we are not the consumers. They receive our data from all the companies we do business with. You would have to figure out on a case by case basis all ties relating to the credit bureau. Probably if you never got a credit card and never took out a loan, you would be somewhat protected from their "research."

[djbusby]

Businesses report data to them. So, you'd have to avoid businesses that report to one. But, they all report to multiple.

[paulddraper]

As a consumer? No

As a business? Sure, report to the ones you want to

[WarOnPrivacy]

> is there a way to avoid having a credit score at one of the credit bureaus?

Without it (also without a sufficiently high number), most avenues to housing are cut off

[cco]

Plaid just started a Credit Reporting Agency (what Experian et al are). First company to attempt to compete in the space seriously in a long time.