Posts by Jonte Monkey

Re: Meh

He doesn't sit on the money - most of it is in the form of Amazon. He just sells some of Amazon (thereby forgoing any future profits on that bit) and someone else takes the profit instead - this is how investments work. Anyhow, him spending money on a yacht just means some of the world's resources have been spent on a yacht, rather than being spent on whatever the person who invested in Amazon shares would have spent it on. The only people better off are yacht manufacturers - the industries where the investor would have otherwise spent their money are worse off by the same amount.

A more extreme example would be someone throwing rocks at your windows. Window manufacturers will be better off, but other businesses where you would otherwise spend your money are worse off.

TLDR: Trickle down economics is a fiction.

Re: Experian -- a disgrace in a democracy.

Sigh - you have just made my point for me - the information that you haven't given away (from your 35 year old credit agreement) doesn't show up on your report as you didn't sign a contract saying that they can have your data. The information that you have given away does. If you don't want to give your details to the credit reference agencies then don't - just don't expect anyone to lend you money. If you think that lending money to unknown people on the internet is a good idea (which is what the banks would be doing if they didn't use the credit reference agencies) then I've got a bridge I'd like to sell to you.

The direct debit system is a bill payment system - nothing to do with credit except that you can use it to pay back what you have borrowed.

Experian make no money from selling the £2 report that they have to make available by law (if you could do all the admin/fraud prevention checks for less than £2 then I know someone at Experian who would be very interested in talking to you). Yes, they do sell a monitoring service but it is up to you if you think it is good value or not.

Re: In the UK Credit reference agencies have special privleges

Yeah, but if you sign up to the mailing preference service you'll be flagged as such on their database and then your details won't be included when they sell a mailing list. You'd be surpised how strictly the data sharing is policed even between individual departments at Experian (I used to work there). Even different banks get different credit reports depending on what data they are allowed to see.

You already have the ability to correct/annotate your data (via a notice of correction), it's just that most people don't use it. You can also get your report for the princely sum of £2 (which is way below what it costs to process - given the number of anti-fraud checks needed before sending out such a report). This report also includes details of who has looked at your data, when they looked and why (with the exception of enquiries by the police for obvious reasons). I can see a good case for making this service free, but you can bet that the agencies would make it much harder to access this service if this were the case. Also, all of the credit reference data on UK people is held in the UK and can't be transferred abroad due to the data protection laws we have in this country. Getting the status of a credit reference agency in this country is hard and it can easily be taken away.

Google on the other hand has no such restrictions/obligations. If you think that they are the same then you are wrong.

Re: Experian -- a disgrace in a democracy.

You are right - they have no implicit right. You gave them the right when you signed the loan application (you did read the small print right?). If you don't want them to hold data on you don't take out any credit.

Re: In the UK Credit reference agencies have special privleges

They only have access to the full electoral roll for anti-fraud purposes. They use the same cut down down version for all of their marketing services as everyone else. And if you think they are as unregulated as wheel clamping companies you really need to do some research.