Experian's Disregard For Consumer Rights and Fiscal Responsibility

Experian, a foreign based company, has been collecting information on American citizens for years now. They have always been the worst of the three credit reporting agencies when it comes to accuracy of information, customer service and the biggest violator of the FCRA. Just when you thought they couldn't possibly get any worse, they decided to refuse consumers access to their FICO score which is the financial standard developed by Fair Isaac intended to give you a numeric value of your credit worthiness. This comes out of pure spite due to the fact that their Vantage score or PLUS score model was never adopted or accepted by the financial industry or businesses and fell flat on its face. They feel that if they withhold the information that many rely on to rebuild their credit will ultimately allow them to push their model forward. Despite the absurdity of that position and failure to understand that alienating consumers will only lead to tougher sanctions and regulations by the Federal government, they are using a loop hole that is built into the FCRA due to poorly worded and written statute. Until the government does something to fix it and the president actually does all the soundbites he is so proud to spew, it will be an effective sabotage of the consumer and their ability to monitor the health of their credit. We'll see if the Obama administration actually follows through with their rhetoric of "fiscal responsibility" and "consumer protection" and "financial reform" and holds them accountable for this outragous disregard for the average citizen held hostage to the whim of a company who was never given permission to collect information but chooses to do it while keeping you in the dark about it.

What follows is a perspective piece done by Liz Pulliam Weston of MSN Money:

Experian wants to keep you in the dark.

There's really no other way to characterize the credit bureau's decision to stop selling FICO credit scores to individuals as of Feb. 14. Experian pulled out of its agreement with myFICO.com, which had been the only place where consumers could buy their FICO scores from all three bureaus.

Experian will continue to sell FICOs to lenders. That's big business, because the FICO is the leading credit scoring formula and the one used by most lenders.

But to consumers, Experian is pretending the FICO is no big deal.

"There is no one credit score that all financial institutions use to make decisions, and there is also no one credit score that consumers must use to help them understand and manage their credit," Experian spokeswoman Susan Hensen wrote me in an e-mail. "There are many reputable credit scores on the market that consumers can use to evaluate their creditworthiness before making financial decisions."

Experian has been reciting this line for years. When consumers buy credit scores directly from Experian, they're sold what the bureau calls "educational" scores, Experian's PLUS or the VantageScore, a formula cooked up with the other two major bureaus that's gone over like a lead balloon with lenders.

So many consumers have been fooled by this gambit, thinking they're getting FICOs when they're not, that some consumer advocates refer to these other credit scores as "FAKO scores."
Why a FICO matters most
Experian's position is that a credit score is a credit score. But these non-FICOs have consequences:

* Mortgage brokers and other lending professionals have long complained -- even before the VantageScore was introduced -- that the bureaus' educational scores are often 30 to 100 points higher than consumers' FICO scores.

* The VantageScore's scale is so different from FICO's -- 500 to 990, compared with FICO's 300 to 850 -- that the same number means vastly different things. A 760 would be an excellent FICO score, for example, but a mediocre rating on VantageScore.

* The result is that would-be borrowers who bought something other than a FICO may think they're in a position to get a great rate, when they might not have a high enough score to get any loan.

Mortgages are also a prime example of why you need to see all three of your FICO scores, not just the two that are still available at myFICO.com.

That's because mortgage lenders typically pull all three of your FICO scores and use the middle one to determine your interest rate. If your FICO scores are 740 from Experian, 680 from TransUnion and 715 from Equifax, for example, most lenders will use the 715 score to set your rate.

If one of those scores is missing, you have no way of knowing what your middle score is or what rate you deserve. You're walking blind into one of the most important financial transactions of your life.

That's just scary.
No right to face your accuser?
In this particular case, consumers are the grass being trampled in a fight among the elephants: one of the credit bureaus and Fair Isaac, the company that created the FICO formula.

Experian Executive Vice President Peg Smith said the bureau didn't set out to cut consumers off from their FICO scores and in fact wanted to expand access to the scores by selling FICOs from Experian.com, something its agreement with Fair Isaac hadn't allowed.

But the terms of the new contract Fair Isaac proposed were "so unreasonable," Smith said, that Experian ended negotiations and decided to rethink its relationship with the scoring formula provider.

"This was never intended to disenfranchise consumers," Smith said. "They've been caught in the middle."

But what led to Experian's move isn't as important is that it happened.

And I say: Enough already. It's time that we stopped allowing our personal data to be seen solely as a profit center for big, faceless corporations. Your access to the information that's critical to your financial life shouldn't be left to the whims of credit bureaus or lenders or anyone else.

If anyone uses a score to evaluate you -- any score -- you should have the right to see that score and challenge the data that go into creating it.

Because FICOs aren't the only scores being used these days. Increasingly, lenders use all manner of proprietary formulas to judge you, as I wrote in "8 secret scores that lenders keep." Two of these secret scores are particularly important these days:

Bankruptcy scores purport to predict the likelihood that you'll throw in the towel on your debt. That's different from a credit score, which predicts the risk of default -- essentially, of missing one payment. As bankruptcies once again mount -- U.S. consumer bankruptcy filings rose 34.4% in January, after topping 1 million last year -- you can bet that every credit card issuer you have is applying its version of a bankruptcy score to your account.

If you don't score well, you can expect the consequences to be more drastic than if the issuer was concerned you'd merely default. You might face a much higher interest rate or even a frozen account as your issuers try to limit their losses.

But you have no right to see this number, know the calculations that went into it or challenge any errors in the data used.

Transactions scores, meanwhile, are applied every time you use your plastic. They're designed to predict the likelihood a transaction might be fraudulent, but they can also be applied to your spending patterns to hunt for signs you might be a growing risk. If you go from shopping at Saks and dining at Per Se to charging groceries at Wal-Mart and taking cash advances, you could be singled out for punitive action.

American Express apparently used transaction scores when it recently told customers it was cutting their credit limits in part because of where they shopped.

But once again, you have no right to see your transaction scores, even when they're used to take adverse action against you.
It's your score, and it's time to claim it
Clearly, federal law needs to catch up with lender practices.

Federal law has long guaranteed your right to see your credit reports. Companies that use your reports against you -- to deny your application for credit, insurance or employment, for example, or to take any other adverse action against you -- are supposed to explicitly tell you that's what has happened. They're also supposed to tell you which bureaus provided the reports and give you contact information so you can review your files and dispute any errors.

In 2003, you were also given the right to buy your credit scores from the bureaus. But the law doesn't specify you have to be given the same scores lenders use.

It's time to fix that and extend consumer protections to the other scores that are being used to evaluate you.

Simply put: If a score is used against you for any reason, you should have a right to see that score, know how it was calculated and protest any errors in the data used to calculate it.

If you agree, tell your lawmakers. This link will help you find your House representative, and you can find your senators here. Send them a link to this column, and let them know the days of consumers being kept in the dark about their scores must end.Liz Pulliam Weston's latest book is "Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life." Columns by Weston, the Web's most-read personal-finance writer and winner of a Clarion Award for online journalism, appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions on the Your Money message board.

Published Feb. 26, 2009

Who Knew Getting Married Was This Easy

We all have seen people getting married on TV shows, movies, plays and so on and I always said that technically since they are saying the words, passing the ring, aren't they legally married? Well it would always come down to the priest wasn't real and it was obviously a joke and that was enough. Apparently the standards of common sense are only applicable in this hemisphere.

I guess in Israel, there is no room for jokes and the rules of Statutory Rape don't apply since you can get married as a joke with no rabbi or priest present and as long as you sleep with her and make sure you are not more than 3 years older, its a done deal, even if your bride is 14. Wow, who knew it would be this easy, right. Now I know you are thinking, this is a joke, he is pulling our legs and being silly, that can't possibly happen in today's civilized world, can it?

You don't believe me, read this:

JERUSALEM - An Israeli girl has become a divorcee at the age of 14.

It all began as a lark, in a schoolyard where a 17-year-old boy recently declared the girl his wife, reciting a Jewish ritual vow in front of witnesses, and she accepted his ring.

That, and what a spokeswoman for Israel's Rabbinical Courts said was the consummation of their marriage, was enough to make them man and wife in the Jewish state.

Spokeswoman Efrat Orbach, describing the girl as the youngest Jewish divorcee in Israel's modern history, said the couple was granted a rabbinical divorce this week.

Under Israeli criminal law, sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl are not illegal as long as her male partner is no more than three years her senior.

Original MSNBC Article

So if you are a pedophile in training like the 17 year old, or just want to justify premarital sex without getting in trouble for it, or just like to be efficient and get it done with no fuss, Israel is your destination. Just don't forget to convert and learn the scriptures well, you don't want to get it wrong and make it void on a technicality. Mazal tov. I guess now I know how my great grand mother got married at the age of 9, its all about the technicalities.

Credit Crunch Turns to Absurdity for Help

VILNIUS, Lithuania -- When the going gets tough, the witches turn pro.

A Vilnius, Lithuania-based debt collection firm has hired Vilija Lobaciuviene, who describes herself as the country's "leading witch," to hunt down companies and individuals who are failing to pay their debts amid the credit crunch.

The new employee will help scoflaws "to understand the situation, reconsider what is right and wrong and act accordingly," a company spokesman said.

She claims to use hypnosis, herbal medicines and "the bio-energy field" when helping her "patients."

Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.wlwt.com/money/18494864/detail.html

Stop Listening to Suze Orman!

The personal finance guru favors super-simple mantras -- even when they're wrong -- and psychological explanations for all your money problems. Maybe it's time to stop trusting her.

"'Tell me what I need to know,' people often say to me. 'Here is what you need to know,' I answer." -- Suze Orman, "The Road to Wealth"

How a bottle-blond former waitress and self-described "55-year-old virgin" with a taste for the good life became the financial messiah for millions of Americans might be a fun Lifetime original movie. Why the masses continue to invest their faith in Suze Orman in the wake of a financial meltdown she never saw coming is a more timely question.

The answer is complicated.

If you've managed to avoid Orman over the past decade, you don't watch "Oprah," CNBC or PBS, and you've probably never entered an airport bookstore, where her toothy visage graces the covers of numerous best-sellers, the latest of which, "Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan," has more than 1 million copies in print and has, according to her publisher, been downloaded 2.2 million times from the author's Web site.

There, you might also be persuaded to open an Orman-sponsored TD Ameritrade brokerage account or buy one of the products that she also sells on QVC, including: the Suze Orman FICO Kit Platinum Version w/Action Planner ($47.70); the Suze Orman Identity Theft Protection Kit w/Anti-Spyware ($39.78); and Suze Orman's Organize and Protect Financial System ($66 plus S&H; Easy Pay! installment plan available).

Orman is that most modern breed of capitalist: the human-industry, self-mythologizing.

"Suze has a unique grasp of the role money plays in our lives, as well as the gift of timing: She tells us exactly what we need to know, precisely when we need to know it." So, at least, claims the jacket copy of one of her books. She addresses her fans either as "my friends" (learned from John McCain, perhaps?) or as "girlfriend." Although she published a comprehensive -- and very useful -- guide to personal finance in 2001, her first two best-sellers focused on the "emotional roadblocks" to financial freedom.

Suze has a lot to say about emotional roadblocks, among other things: "Falling in love is simple -- or so it often seems in retrospect"; "Tears are God's way of forgiving you"; "You will never achieve a sense of power over your life until you have power over your money"; and "The stock market is like a pot of soup."

She has less patience for statistics. Although study after study has shown that personal bankruptcies are caused primarily by catastrophic events like divorce, job loss and, above all, medical bills, and that most of us are struggling with a gap between our income growth and the soaring cost of necessities like housing, Suze tends toward psychological causes that invariably blame the victim.

Who is struggling these days, according to Suze? "People who grew up without much money and later earn a comfortable living sometimes spend too much to make up for what they didn't get as children. . . . People who feel entitled to the good life, or are unconsciously copying a mother or father who lived beyond her or his means. . . . If you feel the need to impress people with what you have rather than with who you are, you are at high risk for credit card abuse."

This from a woman who spends half a million dollars a year chartering private jets and who sells "Cruise With Suze" packages on an Italian luxury liner. (She has also hawked for GM, claiming that leasing a luxury car -- you know, the kind that people drive to impress other people -- is a terrific financial decision: "If you ask me, that's smart money!") No wonder she winks more than Sarah Palin, girlfriend.

Continued: The courage to be rich

But it is not Suze's hypocrisy or even her intellectual laziness that really bothers me; no, that would be something Suze "loves" called "dollar cost averaging," which involves buying the same stock over and over again as it falls.

"It's a great opportunity for you when the value of the shares drops," claims Suze in the inaptly named "The Road to Wealth," "because you can buy shares at 'bargain' prices and average down your cost per share."

Oh, where to begin? Maybe with the obvious: Since when does throwing good money after bad make you rich? It doesn't.

And although one of Suze's mantras is how much she loves stocks -- "(S)tocks, in my opinion, are the best investment vehicle for the growth of your money over time" -- less than 3% of Suze's net worth happens to be invested in them. Instead, she's tucked away the vast majority of those royalties ($32 million-plus, after taxes) into insured, government-backed bonds.

As she trilled to The New York Times Magazine a couple of years ago, "I have a million dollars in the stock market, because if I lose a million dollars, I don't personally care."

Of course, Suze is no worse than the financial tabloids, which have been pushing no-load mutual funds as the "new" path to financial security for as long as anyone can remember despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

I remember hearing a favorite Suze statistic -- that stocks average 11% return a year -- from my mother's financial adviser at Merrill Lynch just before the bottom fell out of her portfolio in 2000. I won't feign surprise that Orman recommends becoming an informed investor by watching cable financial shows such as her own; more disturbing is her ridiculing of people who don't think that financial companies are on their side as "paranoid." These days, if that isn't reason enough to dump her as your financial adviser -- or as your friend -- how about this whopper: The long bull market, sayeth Suze, was a result of the economy's "remarkable state of balance." All this while income inequality, the federal deficit, the imbalance of trade, foreclosures, defaults and personal bankruptcies were skyrocketing.

At least we know why she didn't see the meltdown coming.

Suze, my friends, has been lying to us, and we know she knows she's been lying because she herself tells us that she ignores her own advice. (Apparently it's more important to brag about how many books you've sold than to hang with your peeps.) Which brings us to the awful truth: What we're supposed to love about Suze Orman is not her knowledge and certainly not her prescience, but her ability to turn circumstances to her advantage, the resilience of a waitress-turned-bank-vice-president who squandered a great gig only to make a fortune off you and me by having the courage to be rich.

We are to admire her, just as many of us secretly admire Bernie Madoff (who promised remarkably similar returns to Suze Orman's 11% stock market) and the equally smarmy CEOs of those crooked banks that she tells us to trust for their gumption. Despite her obvious flaws, we admire Suze so much that millions of us will fork over more of our dwindling dollars for her new FICO kit -- co-branded with Fair Isaac, the largest credit-scoring company in the country, because she now assures us that a high FICO score is the key to our financial futures.

True, her previous book promised us that we would never be financial victims again. Not only that, but we would receive the kind of lives we deserved, which sounds suspiciously like one of those insidious credit card offers, but whatever. When was the last time an evangelist predicted anything correctly or the phone psychic told you something that you didn't already know? So what if we cannot retire because Suze has been telling us to buy stocks and trust the fat cats?

Suze, my friends, possesses the courage to be rich. The rest of us are suffering from a collective emotional roadblock.

Editor’s note: This article has been edited since it was originally published.
Written By James Scurlock, The Big Money