Sassy, well put. The old subjective methods for acquiring loan approvals were well known for their racism, sexism, and other -isms, lol. Credit scoring was an attempt to address those issues. Unfortunately, some of the old problems remain, although certainly not to the previous degree; moreover, other terrible issues have been introduced. Obviously the whole system needs to be overhauled. On the other hand, we don't want to return to the good old days when wormy little white men behind bank desks made all the financial decisions for everyone. (By the way, I'm a wormy little white man myself, barely 5 feet 8 inches on assertive days, so I have nothing personal against them, lol.) As for lbrown59, don't worry Sassy! I put him on ignore months ago, so I no longer can read what he has to say. (Now if only people would stop quoting him, lol...) By the way, I see from your quote that he still refers to me as "Dock" lol. Sail away! Doc, not Dock
WOW what a great discussin...so great I couldn't resist adding my anecdotal knowledge here so bear with me if I bore you. As a former corporate banker I am very aware of how every facet of credit providing and banking access is still discriminatory but now they have the veneer of "compliance" to gloss it right over. I worked for a large bank in NYC and we merged with another large bank...well then started the meetings regarding which branches in the city should be and could be closed. That's when the word "redlining" popped up. This basically means you have to tiptoe around low income folks as it pertains to banking and housing access. Now in my small little brain I could not see the difference in these "glossed" over compliance discussions and out and out discrimination. I mean when we are compelled by law to treat potential "redlining" people differently it is a form of discrimination. A better analogy...when I started out in my career (very young and dumb I might add) the CEO of this Fortune 500 corporation very generously addressed his new recruits. Somewhere near the end of his remarks he mentioned opportunities were there for everyone as he had 2 female sr. execs and 1 wheelchair bound sr. exec.. In my naivete (and complete stupidity) I raised my hand and asked this question "wouldn't it be even more impressive if you could not name the number of females and other under represented minorities as they would be too numerous to remember?" Well of course my new boss fell off his chair and the CEO was struck speechless...and a few weeks later I had my resume updated and was snowing the sidewalks of Chicago with them...lol. So no matter what system is put into place it will be ultimately be discriminatory to those excluded minorities. There is a large segment of our population that probably thinks fico is a great name for a dog from the pound. So while we white-anglo-saxon-protestant-catholic-jews bitch and moan about the inefficiencies of the credit scoring business there is an equal population that wouldn't even dream of obtaining an Orchard Bank card much less and AMEX green. Thanks all for a very compelling and interesting discussion. clc
It seems that FICO does discriminate against a minority, those that are in a group that has a higher risk of default on a debt. If your credit habits fall out the â??normâ?, your score is dinged. FICO scores are good predictors of the credit worthiness of groups of people with similar habits. Any system of statistical prediction is useless for an individual case. That is the whole basis of statistical analysis. JohnM
Quixote, for whatever reason I was compelled to read your signature out loud: What Would Scooby Do? Until I got to the last word, I had no idea I was going to laugh out loud for real. Doc[k]
I must confess; I saw it on a bumper sticker and shamelessly stole it. It ranks right up there with "Visualize Whirled Peas" and "Cover Me, I'm Changing Lanes" (you have to be from Southern California to really get that one).
LOL! I want one of those bumper stickers. BONUS: My 4 year old son has practically turned our house (and videotape rack) into a virtual Scooby shrine, so I'll score points with a sticker like that, lol. Doc
Most con jobs are. That's why it's a con job. This is one of rhe biggest rip offs ever pulled on consumers.
The only problem is there are no rules except what they make and they change them as suits their whims. Lets play a game of poker I get to make all the rules and can change them when ever and however I want to but you can't .What do you think your chances would be of winning against me? They are hitting us on two fronts with this kind of game plan. One is the FICO. Another is Credit Card Contracts. In both cases they make all the rules.
. Like the good Doc said, Not to Question this -but he is as wrong as rain about some of his ideas about scoring.
Just hanging in there... I haven't had much time lately, but I still have a few threads I'm subscribed to.
This is nothing than more than rationalism to avoid facing the fact that scoring is a shell game. LB 59QUOTE]Originally posted by mj BUT... the overall benefits of scoring - the complete elimination of race, creed, gender, sexial orientation, marital status, age, etc. - from the credit decision process is a good thing. -mj [/QUOTE]
