LastWeekTonight
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2016
18:46 · 12M views · Apr 11, 2016
A Last Week Tonight segment on credit reports, explaining their outsized role in people's lives and how often they contain critical errors.
Referenced as a quick, entertaining overview of problems with credit reporting and scoring.
3 comments from Hacker News
Some steps to monitor your credit (USA): 1. Signup for [LINK] . Yes, you can argue about giving your credentials to a 3rd party company and they show you ads but credit karma sends me real time activity on my credit report FOR FREE. I get offers etc but I am happy since I can keep an eye on my credit report from all agencies. (except Experian who want you to pay them for report). 2. Get a free credit report once a year from [LINK] 3. Get your FICO score from discover [0] for free OR Open a credit card with Citi cards [1] and I think for $95/Year fee, they give you free FICO score which is the score that majority of lenders use. There are many other companies that offer FICO score for a fee but this was a good way for me since I needed that type of card anyway. [0] [LINK] [1] [LINK] 4. Check your credit card and bank statements every few days. I do it once a week. It is a good habit. For this step, do it manually. Don't rely on mint or tools like that. Check the transactions manually. 5. Setup alerts with your bank/credit card for transactions with a certain threshold. For example, I have alerts for anything over $10. For under $10, see Step 4. This is another step in case you do have a fraud. 5. Don't give out your SSN or credit information to anyone unless absolutely sure. Never give these on a phone call with any company unless you know that you called that company and they need the info (example: health insurance etc). 6. If you ever get a call from a Collection Agency, do
Some employers will even decide who to hire based on their credit score. Bad credit = can't get a job. John Oliver did a bit on the whole credit scoring system scam this video
John Oliver covered this recently. Many background check agencies won't let you run a background check on yourself. this video