Don’t creditors have to disclose that they are going to report to a credit reporting agency before you decide to take out a line or credit?

For example, I’ve always seen something like this in my credit agreements:

> You agree that we will give information about the Account to credit reporting agencies. We will tell a credit reporting agency if you fail to comply with any term of this Agreement. This may have a negative impact on your credit report.

Indeed. And it is barely possible to keep from having a credit report at all depending on what you do. But it is difficult to avoid any of those forms.

It’s hard to do while keeping up with the Joneses, but 26 million Americans manage to do it.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-repor...

The easiest way is to live with someone (without being married). They have credit and you don’t even exist.

Or rent and use a debit card or cash.

Many rental agreements report to credit agencies. Though you can find smaller landlords that don’t bother.

It’s pretty easy to find them. There’s almost an equal number of individually owned rental units as there are business-owned rental units. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/02/as-national...

I wonder what the age breakdown is. I could see a lot more younger people never having needed to get credit yet. If you still live with your parents and go to college or whatever you don't really need credit.

After that though you can't even really rent an apartment without a credit check so I'm not sure what you would do (I guess if you have a partner that handles it for you).

It is mostly the unbanked who have no credit. College track kids often get their first credit in the form of student loans or low limit student credit cards.

There are plenty of places that rent without credit checks. Where do you think all the people with no credit (or no SSN!) live? It might not be on the nice side of the tracks, though.

I don't know what you mean by "opting in". The credit reporting agencies keep track of you without your consent by providing services to other companies and agencies.

Have you ever had a bank account? Gotten a credit card? A mortgage? Missed a student loan payment?

When I got my very first credit report, which I was entitled to by law, the reporting agencies asked me to very information they already had about my life and financial history dating back to my early teenage years.

It pays to check credit files, British Telecom linked someone else's bad debts to my file simply for trying to broker a repayment plan for the other person, and I got financially linked to other people I wasnt financially linked to.

Especially important if sharing properties as a student.

>When I got my very first credit report, which I was entitled to by law, the reporting agencies asked me to very information they already had about my life and financial history dating back to my early teenage years

Thats because they dont know if the data supplied to them is genuine or not. Postal addresses were also a problem, I know of programmers who would boast about how quickly they could clean millions of records a second in the 90's (in memory rather than disk), but the credit reference companies main issue is getting clean data. A bank might have one address for you, and another bank or loan company might have a different address for you, both work in that the post office deliver the mail but the addresses are different.

example House Name House No, Street Town/City Postcode(zip code)

House No, Street Town/City Postcode(zip code)

House Name Street Town/City Postcode(zip code)

Post office should deliver to all 3 addresses, but a computer program see's differences, ergo cleaning data and recognising these differences were one and the same involved a lot of time.

Other examples is the name of someone. A.N. Surname Arthur N Surname A. Name Surname

All the same person, 3 different but legal ways to do a name on paperwork.

>The credit reporting agencies keep track of you without your consent by providing services to other companies and agencies.

The contracts signed with banks and lenders of sort have blanket clauses where they can share their data with whoever they like. You have no control over this. So they do have consent and they sometimes use this for "fraud detection", so either dont deal with them, go cash and/or crypto.

They can't delete their shadow profile, or opt out of it. Facebook still collects data on you from your friends even if you don't want them to.

> If they ever stop finding value in it they can delete it

Actually I can’t delete my Facebook account. I forgot the password years ago, and I get the recovery questions incorrect (I have to recognise people in photos from extended social graph and I don’t know them!). I’m not sure I even have the email account any more. I can’t delete the account.

You should be able to still delete it with a GDPR request. However if you have no actual way to prove the account is yours then it's not really reasonable for them to delete it.

The problem I have with it is that it's rent-seeking. Since FB and Twitter are as ubiquitous as they are, any company will suffer if someone is impersonating them on there. So companies will now be paying FB and Twitter for this "service" not because it gives them value but as protection. That will apply to a lesser extent to individuals as well.