Let me first stipulate that my credit score is spectacular. It’s over 800, so I’m not bitching about unfair calculations or being unable to correct an error at one of the credit bureaus, though we all know those things happen all the fucking time.
Nor am I complaining about the Equifax data breach, at least not directly. That was bound to happen eventually, and I’ll talk about why it was inevitable in a bit.
I’ve got two main beefs with these ass-clowns.
Who Said You Could Have That?
First, they have a shit-ton of private information about me that I never agreed to let them have and can’t make them remove. They literally know stuff about me that even I don’t know, and they’ll give it out at the drop of a hat.
I recently had to verify my identity to an investment company. Keep in mind that the investment company had, at this point, no fucking idea who I was. As far as they knew, I could have been a Russian mafia member who specialized in identity theft. The functionary at the investment company got on his computer, connected to one of the credit bureaus (refusing to tell me which one), and began asking me questions like what kind of car did I own in 1972, where was my Social Security card issued, and what was my phone number in 1995. My answer was, “how the fuck should I know?” How difficult would it be for a hacker to connect like the investment guy did and get access to everything about me except how long it’s been since I got a blow job from my wife? Probably, not that hard.
Say What?
Second, what has really set me off now, is the data breach. Not the fact that it happened, but the fact that these assholes are going to make billions of extra dollars because of it.
Every American who is better equipped mentally than a fucking mosquito is going to freeze their credit. The cost to do this varies by state but let’s say it’s about $5 on average (what my state charges to freeze or unfreeze an account). Say half the population has a credit account and is smart enough to try to freeze it before some jackal steals all their money. At $5 a pop, that’s roughly a billion dollars (times three for the three agencies — five if you count Innovis and ChexSystems). Worse yet, they’ll need to pay again to unfreeze the account when they need credit, and again to re-freeze it. Every fucking time.
This is not to mention the largely useless “Identity Protection Service” fees these fuckwads have the balls to offer, the sales of which will skyrocket because of the data breach.
“We probably can’t protect your information, so how about paying us extra to be sympathetic when you get ripped off, though we are in no way promising to get any of your money back because we almost certainly won’t.”
Equifax is waiving the fee for now, but you can bet your ass it will be back. With billions of dollars in potential profits to be had in the case of a data breach, let’s stop for a minute and try to imagine what possible motive these fuckers could have to be careful with our information? Their non-existent moral compasses? Something their Sunday-school teacher once told them? Their belief that people’s trust is more important than money?
I won’t go into the horrors of trying to freeze your accounts, and those of everyone else in your family with credit, because you’re an intelligent person and you’ve already experienced it. Just let me mention that Experian insists that they can’t locate my account based on the data I provided, even though Equifax and TransUnion had no trouble with the same data. Now, I’m supposed to mail them everything but the kitchen sink by registered letter and pay them an extra fucking fee for processing it because of their inability to find their ass with both hands. Let’s try to guess how long it will take to process several million paper records. Months? Years?
My Solution
Finally, you can see my solution in the title — nationalize the bastards. Yes, government agencies do fuck things up, but in my experience, private companies fuck up more often — and here’s the key — the government, unlike the credit bureaus, has absolutely no incentive to let my data get out. They also don’t have any reason to be ridiculously conservative when calculating your credit score. A bad credit score from a credit bureau means more profit for their actual customers (note: not you and me).
A data breach by the government means people get fired. Reputations are destroyed. And most important, it means extra work for the people in the trenches. A data breach by a credit bureau means huge profits. I don’t particularly trust the government, but I trust them a lot more than a bunch of venal pricks who have a financial incentive to give criminals access to my data.
Don’t like my solution? What’s yours?