I spent the weekend researching data removal methods and decided to start with my credit report. I’m not even going to get into all of the alarming privacy invasions that popped up during this process. But when I got to the experian report, I was met with T&C box that says I have to hand over my phone carrier info and it wouldn’t let me proceed without doing so. The bureaus are legally required to give you one free report a year. It’s bad enough that these companies are even given rights to my data and now they’re using it to request further information.
I’m just so angry, frustrated, and violated.
They won’t automatically use your phone bill to bolster your credit but they will use it as a form of authentication. That’s the infuriating part to me. Miss a payment? Your credit score can drop. Make every payment on time? Nothing.
It’s not authentication. They are specifically requesting access to cellular information that my service provider can’t sell to them unless I give them authorization. Authorization to obtain my most intimate data (communication usage) in order to complete their data profile on me is not the same thing as authentication.
Credit cards and these damn credit agencies are a cancer on society. I don’t know anyone at this point who hasn’t been a victim of identity theft because of these aholes and their shenanigans.
time to look up some alternatives.
There is a way to request it by mail, the phone thing is just a quicker way for them to verify you are who you say you are because they ALREADY know all the information, they just want to make sure YOU know the right phone number. If you use the wrong number they might give you an alternative option, or it will eventually tell you the only option is by US mail.
Pretty much anyone who has your phone number can use that information to look you up in a database, experian just spells it out because they get hacked so often its a liability for them to store any information at all, In a normal functioning society such a company would fail and never be taken seriously, but in capitalist america they get to decide if you’re worth lending money to, WHAT A COUNTRY!!!
This is not a verification request. If you look at the screenshot, they are explicitly asking to have access to the intimate data that my cellular carrier is willing to transfer to them, given my perpetual release of it. Probably because of an existing bargain between the two parties on how much each will bid, given that one takes on the other’s liability (phone company advertises they won’t release all your data forever > but phone company promotes credit company > credit company boldly requests usage data > credit company pays phone company and both win).
These are corporations who make their money by selling peoples’ data. Offering a free copy of the report is and always was just a pacifier for the privacy advocates who wanted legislation. They don’t actually have any interest in providing credit reports to the “consumer” securely or within the legally required timeframe. Their interest is in obtaining more data and in the security/validity of their own harvested datum, which are assets to them.
guessing they’re using the carrier’s data for verification. name, address, phone number, socials and at least partials of credit cards, bank accounts. whatever relevant that they have.
this is all data the credit bureau has on you already
It’s not, or they wouldn’t need to request my explicit permission to obtain it. You don’t need to guess what it’s for because we know that credit “bureaus” exist to profile “consumers” and sell their information, whether aggregate or personal. They’re asking to gain access to my carrier account and my device information. This is about data inventory. The credit bureaus know who has it and want permission to buy it from them.
Can confirm, it is information they already have. Below is likely the API the telco exposes to the bureau. Each data point queried returns true, false, or a confidence score.
It is intended as an anti-fraud tool. Not saying I agree with it. Something like PGP is sufficient for building out a web-of-trust without needing to share my personal information.
Please stop with the defiling of the word ‘Fraud’. Fraud does not mean someone who claims ownership of their own identity. A $20 billion dollar association missing a handful of verified data points on someone’s life doesn’t constitute fraud. We’re talking about a corporation whose whole market is based on repurposing the data they collect about us. So if you’re going to make an inference as to their intention, assume it’s the one they have had since 1970. To gather more information about the public for profit and control.
I’ve run into issues with SMS-based 2FA (yikes) on some websites because my phone number was a landline number I purchased then later transferred to my wireless carrier.
I bring this up because I’ve noticed some websites have the typical “we’ll confirm your information with your wireless carrier” verbiage, but those generally mention they do so to determine whether the number is a landline or wireless.
I’m super unsure of what’s going on in this case, but when I first saw this screenshot this is what came to mind.
Experian is stuck on an old phone number for 2FA and I can’t remove it because I don’t have a phone number. I really hate how they tie everything to a phone number.
Me too, and it’s worse because it’s not secure.
I keep saying this a lot but I don’t know why recently (the last ~5 years) everyone is jumping on SMS-based 2FA. I remember this was really big around 2010 and as a developer all the tools for SMS-based 2FA are deprecated or unmaintained. It seems like all these websites that jumped on board 10 years late have very poor security practices.
