Oregon woman awarded $18.6 million after Equifax failed to fix errors on her credit report

[customerserviceguy]

66. I'm not talking about "hard working people"

I'm talking about people who don't take responsibility for paying their bills, or at least notifying a creditor when they have a financial problem. And, yes, I've been through periods of joblessness where I was able to do one or both of the above.

A credit score is an attempt to evaluate how well or poorly an individual can perform those tasks in both good times and in bad. Without them, everybody would be assumed to be of roughly equal risk, and loan rates would reflect that. Maybe you're fine with people you envy having to pay more in interest rates, but I'm not.

And I'm not alone. For starters, I believe that a credit score has nothing to do with whether or not you're a good driver. I would have voted "yes" on Oregon's Ballot Measure No. 42 back in 2006, had I been a resident there instead of neighboring Washington, but nearly two-thirds of voters in a blue state voted against it:

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Oregon_Ballot_Measure_42,_Use_of_Credit_Score_to_Determine_Insurance_Premiums_(2006)

If that large of a majority in a fairly progressive place thinks it's fair to use credit scores in things like insurance (and probably employment decisions) then they're not going away any time soon.