Comment by gruez
3 years ago
> Like the banker opening a checking account for me who commented "OK, we can move past that," or please see my other reply with anecdotes. It also hurts for me to see that deadname and my thanks for knowing that term.
I don't see what the issue is. The fact that you previously used that name is a piece of factual information about you. Should anyone be allowed to suppress factual information about themselves because they're uncomfortable with it? eg. "10 years ago I racked up enormous amounts of debt. I'm shameful of that. Being reminded of that hurts me. I would like that information to be expunged."
>There are many other ways that these reports have harmed non-transgender people with false, misleading or outdated information.
This isn't really a convincing argument. You can make the same argument for the internet, ie. "there are many other ways that the internet has harmed non-transgender people with false, misleading or outdated information, we should ban it". What about the advantages? ie. banks being able to accurately assess risk, and reliable borrowers not having to pay for the credit risk of unreliable borrowers?
>If someone accrues massive debt, that's the bank's problem, to recover in collections, the court or with the sheriff, and not by giving someone a virtual scarlet letter.
If someone accrues massive debt and refuses to pay it, don't you think it's fair for the lender to tell other people of the experience?
> Should anyone be allowed to suppress factual information about themselves because they're uncomfortable with it?
Just because it's factual that I caught gonorrhoea from a prostitute while on holiday in Thailand, doesn't mean Equifax has a right to tell my boss, my landlord, and half a dozen russian hackers about it.
>Just because it's factual that I caught gonorrhoea from a prostitute while on holiday in Thailand
that seems to be an entirely different issue because the information is privileged/confidential. For the purposes of this argument I'll concede that information obtained under confidence shouldn't be able to be disseminated. That said, I can't really imagine "you didn't pay your debts" to be in the same category of secrecy as "caught gonorrhoea from a prostitute". That's even more true for something as public as your name.
Debt is created by the lender to make a profit. Saying that somebody's credit history is inherently public is the same as saying their work performance history is inherently public. Nobody is forcing lenders to make loans, quite the opposite; in fact there is a great deal of statutory law preventing predatory lenders (ie deliberately lending to those who can't repay) and the megabanks addiction to junk like car loans is also evidence of the rapacious appetite for lending.
Thus, credit history is for the lenders and by the lenders, all with the purpose of maximizing revenue for the lenders. How one concludes that permanent credit history is some burden all citizenry has to bear for their lifetime is beyond me.
Should anyone be allowed to suppress factual information about themselves because they're uncomfortable with it? eg. "10 years ago I racked up enormous amounts of debt. I'm shameful of that. Being reminded of that hurts me. I would like that information to be expunged."
Actually yes, given sufficient elapsed time. People change a lot over ten years.