Because I really wasn't feeling the level of vitriol in the response you deleted--I'm assuming that you were sniping against me not yourself.

If I have misread you, then I have misread you, but I was responding to a perceived level of vitriol aimed at me. Something I get almost every time you and I interact.

I am clearly misreading things, but I have a hard time dealing with you when you come at me. All I get is hostility to anything I have to say, and utter disrespect for me.

I'm sorry, but I cannot point to anything specific, so I am willing to accept that it is just me wildly misreading the things you say to me.

As to this specific assertion you are attacking:

how can you know you were sent the exact same report as whoever requested it. There is no guarantee in the system that this is the case

I have since tried to clarify and correct my position, and you are harping on a comment from before the clarification and correction, so that is probably adding to my sense that you are not actually interested in a conversation with me.

I don't know how to defend myself against this attack, because I have stepped away from that position.

Sean, I'm not attacking you. It is not about you. It is about a position you have, and my lack of understanding of it.

If you do think there's a history or practice of sending out different credit reports, I'm interested in why. I haven't understood anything to clear up that point. Since you no longer believe or wish to defend that it happens, then it's all good. I missed the part where you retracted it, that's all.

Still, if you can find where I went ad hominem or hostile (especially if it's different from how I treat everyone, I know I swear and bristle a lot, but I did think that *was* all about me, and all a dressy persona, and not directed at people except when I'm not debating, because then it's fun (thank you, msbelle, for always being an available target)), please do call me out on it, because I don't want to do that. I'm only talking about ideas here. Anything else is beside the point and damaging.

One of the credit bureaus has almost everything right on my report...except they think I'm 87 years old. I submitted documentation to prove and change that (I couldn't get the free report until I did because the DOB I was putting in didn't match their records. They said they changed it and wouldn't tell me where they were getting that number...and the next report was back to the same thing. Ridiculous.

Sean, I'm not attacking you. It is not about you. It is about a position you have, and my lack of understanding of it.

My apologies for misreading you.

As for the specific point, I think I was trying to say that, whether or not the practice is rampant, the fact that the system is vulnerable to such a possibility, and vulnerable in such a way as to hide its own vulnerability strikes me as highly problematic, and not usable for hiring practices. I don't know how to fix the problem, so maybe it is the best of a set of bad choices, but I have my doubts.

Apology accepted.

the fact that the system is vulnerable to such a possibility, and vulnerable in such a way as to hide its own vulnerability strikes me as highly problematic

Can I talk more about this, or is the whole thing off the table?

Please, go ahead.

My questions are--how is the system particularly vulnerable (as in, this system in this industry above and beyond any other) to the possibility? How does it inherently hide its own vulnerability different from any other client communication that happens every day? And is this something that's happening, or is it a potential problem, again like any other in this industry or any other?

Is this theory or practice? If it is theory, is this a particularly threatening theory? What sets it apart, or is the system/industry rife, and this is just one more example?

It seems to me to be an assurance, so I don't understand how it's flipped to a problem here.

I also think you are missing the wider point here. I actually think it unlikely a credit scoring company sends an incomplete version of the report or one different from the one they usually send. I don't see a strong incentive to do this. Sean has kind of dropped this point as well, though he may still believe it more likely than I do.

However I think his wider points are right on.

1) Credit scores can be incredibly inaccurate. The procedures for correcting them make it extremely difficult to for corrections to stick. And the credit scoring companies have little incentive to fix that. Also one point about it being hard to correct an error a collection agency stands behind is that collection agencies are big customers for credit scoring companies, unlike the person being scored.

2) Credit scores are an awful basis for making hiring decisions. A poor credit score really is not evidence someone will be careless in their work, or likely to steal or be dishonest.

3) Credit scores are an even worse basis on which to base insurance decisions.

I also think you are missing the wider point here

I haven't espoused an opinion on the wider point in quite a while. So I'm not sure what position you think I have on it.

I have a specific point I want clarification on. That's all I'm going on record with. The rest you're inferring, and I don't consider myself bound by your interpretation in any way until I start discussing it.

Sean, I think this falls under the rubric of "never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity." The credit bureaus have data on millions of people that comes from any number of institutions whose accuracy is suspect, and they have no incentive to notice that the person linked to the information can't be 87 or have defaulted on a plane in Alaska. If you want to know how your credit score is figured, go to MyFico [link]

I loathe the whole system, but in terms of your concerns, I really don't believe someone could successfully fiddle the scores of one individual with malicious intent on three separate credit bureaus.