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I propose a new system with the following changes:
1. All medical debt is erased permanently from your credit file, and all medical-debt reporting is to immediately stop. That information is sacrosanct because it's a direct indicator of your personal medical problems and the severity of such; NOBODY deserves to be privy to that knowledge save for you and your doctor. On top of that, everybody has so much medical debt right now that most places don't even bother to *count* it anymore, because if they did, NOBODY in the lower and middle classes above the age of 30 would qualify for credit. It's pointless and it's an invasion of privacy--it needs to go.
2. Disallow determining credit scores based on geography.
3. Change the system so that debt falls off of your credit report in five years rather than seven. Then fix the loophole that allows collection agencies to keep selling the same debt back and forth to each other, constantly "re-upping" that timer.
4. Get rid of automated "scores" and just give potential creditors a printout to read; too many people are denied credit based on some arbitrary, computer-generated score, and unlike in the old days, there's no opportunity to explain extenuating circumstances. For example: my abusive ex-husband DESTROYED my credit when I left him, and the asshole did it deliberately. He bounced checks from our empty joint account all over the place, he defaulted on a car loan, and he stopped paying the rent for the apartment that was in both of our names. There was nothing I could do about it at the time--I was poor, broke, scared for my life, and hiding in another state. By the time I got the paperwork signed to take my name off of those things (I had to do it all by mail and it took forever) the damage was already done. He practically ruined my life for years and years afterward. NOBODY should be able to use the credit reporting agencies as a tool for further abuse--the impersonal, cold, bureaucratic system that currently permits this needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up.
5. Make sure that all companies who report bad credit behavior are also reporting GOOD behavior. There are too many small companies that report the bad stuff without ever bothering to send in the good stuff. Take my current "holding company" landlord: they reported it when we missed a rent payment ONE time, but never reported ANYTHING when we paid our rent ahead by seven months. In fact, they didn't report it when we were making month-to-month payments right on time. That sort of thing should not just be illegal--it should be impossible.
6. There needs to be a companion to the consumer credit reporting agencies in the form of an agency FOR consumers that accumulates a history of COMPANIES. If a company cheats you, screws you over, or does business in an ugly, under-handed manner, there should be a way for consumers to report that behavior and for other consumers to access it before deciding which companies to do business with. Internet reviews aren't enough, as so many of them are fluff reviews from company employees. We need real on-the-ground reports from consumers to battle the rampant fraud and manipulation forced upon us by the greedy business sector, and we need it in a way that doesn't involve the media, because the media is too easy to manipulate.
Feel free to add your own ideas to mine.
:hi:
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