Yes, still worthwhile. The bureaus collect all sorts of information and attach it to you regardless of whether the information is even correctly attributed. A freeze might prevent some of that nonsense.
I had a difficult time getting loans to go to college many years ago. Come to find out my credit was through the floor due to all 3 agencies misattributing dozens of pages of bad loans to me starting when I was only a toddler. The middle initials & socials were 1 character off each, but it all still went to my name.
Unfortunately I didn't have the knowledge to freeze my credit when I was 3 years old - my fault, I should have known I would later suffer the consequences of my inaction.
You have to be the dumbest toddler I have ever met!
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We need a financial revolution (which is what OWS was all about -- and you know how they responded to that - especially in SFO.... "people are mad at the FED!, so must remove all planter boxes in front of the SF FED and install giant granite bollards and update our lifting stop gate at the entrance - and we have to get our fed workers to stop bragging about their $30,000 a month bonuses loudly on BART (yes this is an actual thing)
Issue isn’t if you have debt or not. Credit rating agencies start tracking very early, and what they’ll track for you is basically “no data/low credit score.”
That doesn’t mean you’re not in the system, or more importantly - doesn’t mean qn attacker can’t take out debt in your name.
A freeze is the only thing that stops this for you and your kids. I hate that it works this way but such is life.
That's a really good question that I don't know the answer to. I would guess that they have a file on you somehow – Utility bills? Landlords checking your credit? But I'm not confident enough to know what would be the best thing to do in that scenario.
Somebody using your social security number and other information would be able to apply for credit. As soon as they do that, the bureau(s) called by the lender would have a file on "you".
The federal government requires that all three major bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) provide you one credit report each per year, for free. You can request it here, the official source for these mandated free reports:
First, you should take this quiz by telling "us" your mother's maiden name, the name of the street you grew up on, your elementary school's name, the name of your first grade teacher, the name of your first pet, the make/model of your first car, and to help make sure we know it's you, please enter your SSN# which also helps keep all of this info from being confused with someone else. After all of that, please, continue to avoid taking on any debt. We will relieve you of that burden
Have you paid a utility bill? Signed up for a utility account? Had a credit check run for an apartment for made payments on a lease? You are probably in the system. Learn to play it before it plays you.
It doesn't matter that you don't take on debt. The point is to protect yourself from unscrupulous individuals who want you to take on debt on their behalf.
Hmm, given the average age of a millenial is ~33 the statistic and the claim (exaggerated as it is) don't necessarily need to be totally out of alignment.
The primary problem with this claim as it usually presented is that it tends to ignore that earlier generations did not go from kindergarten to home ownership in a year: you grow up with your parents' generation's condition as "normal" when it actually represents 30-50 years of "accumulation".
So yeah, 10 years ago, very, very few millenials owned a home. But that was true for 23 year old boomers too.
Out of my international circle of friends between twenty five and forty, only one outright owns their own house. And they have a high paying internal software development job for a big European company. The rest of us either split rent or live with family. Those of us in said circle living in the U.S. will likely never own houses because of what ChrismarshallNY below stated: The few places that aren't McMansions and aren't in HOA developments and thus are actually affordable are being bought by massive investment firms and flipped into being duplexes for rental.
Even the trailer parks aren't safe, as the companies buy them from the owners, evict all the tenants living in their own houses, and then develop the land into more unaffordable HOA clone mega houses, luxury apartments, or McMansions. Near where I live six of the eight trailer parks have disappeared in the last four years and have been turned into two separate campgrounds, a car wash, a dirt parking lot waiting to be redeveloped, a warehouse, and a new luxury senior apartment complex, with intent to redevelop the others into retail or housing shortly. There's been a spike in homelessness because the people living in these trailer homes couldn't afford to move their houses and didn't have anywhere left to go even if they could.
1. just ignore it, on the basis that the statistical data collected by many private organizations and the federal government say that it is incorrect.
2. as much as I hate quoting Bezos, he does have a good line about how, if anecdotes and data don't align, there's probably something wrong with the way the data is being measured and/or collected.
3. Accept that the data is correct, and that this sort of anecdotal reporting is also correct, but represents conditions that were also the case for previous generations yet somehow never became part of the zeitgeist.
I don't know which to choose. Maybe there are others.
If you don't think these rental investment corporations are a problem, then I won't gainsay that. I just have some local IRL experience in the matter, and have seen it discussed.
I'm not in a debate. I made an offhand comment, which was not unique to me (it has been bandied about in popular culture for quite some time), you called it "false," in a fairly harsh manner, and I didn't attack back, because I like to behave myself, here.
If my offhand comment offended you, then I am sincerely sorry, and you have my apology, but it won't change the way I think or interact, and I'll likely offend again. I'm a decent person, and don't mean to offend, but I also have the approach I have, and some people find it offensive. I'm not sure why, because no one ever takes the time to explain. They just attack. I've learned not to attack back, and make my best guess at what their problem was. Given that data (my guess), I may (or may not) choose to modify my approach in future interactions.
In the aggregate, I yam what I yam, and some folks like it, and some folks don’t. Seems most folks find me easy to get along with.
You made a remark about millenial home ownership that, according to data collected by the relevant agencies, doesn't appear to be correct.
I just pointed out that millenial home ownership is only a little behind the age-adjusted levels for the last 4 "generations".
I think this is important - if the data is correct, then it's essentially a myth that millenials have no access to home ownership, and there's a certain kind of psycho-social danger to this idea being believed (particularly among millenials).
It is of course possible that the data is incorrect, or misleading, and I'm interested in that possibility, because the "story" about millenials and home ownership is widespread, and perhaps we should be alert to the idea that the data is not representing reality correctly.
Then you mentioned corporate residential real estate investment, which I certainly agree is a problem, but that seems orthogonal to the basic question of whether or not millenials do or do not own housing at roughly the same level as prior generations. I wondered if you saw some specific reason to mention it. If it were true that they do not, then certainly corporate RE investment could be a part of the reason. But it appears that in broad terms, they do, and so although it would be nice to end corporate RE investment somehow, it doesn't seem to be a particularly large problem.
It's worse for renters. Any arbitrary thing could cause them to be denied for a rental. Good luck fishing out what that is at each rental company/landlord.
I don't plan on ever getting a mortgage. I am extremely debt averse, I'd rather live frugally than essentially being a slave to the bank/creditor for years.
Do you have a credit card? That is technically debt.
If someone has your information, they can open a credit card under your name and max it out. Or even more common, they’ll get a car loan under your name. Since loans are furnished at the end of the day, they’ll often get 2 or 3 car loans in the same day.
Like FB, LinkedIn etc the credit bureaux maintain a file on everyone they come across. So they likely have a file on you regardless.
In addition, in the US these files are used for other purposes than taking out a loan, for example renting an apartment, for some jobs, etc.
I recommend building up a credit history even if you don't need it now. You might later. There are plenty of articles on the web about how to start, basically getting a credit card (perhaps secured) and slowly building up your credit.
I am lucky enough to be a cash buyer. I tried to rent a house for a year a few months ago but my credit rating was not good enough. I have a couple of credit cards which I pay off every month (so good, my credit utilization is low) but by the rating companys' POV there wasn't enough to go on: not enough accounts, and no accounts apart from the CCs: no mortgage, no car payments etc. The fact that I'm a homeowner doesn't appear in the report.
