Banksters Mine Your Social Networks

[Jaglavak]

Be careful who you friend, sports fans.

Your Deadbeat Facebook Friends Could Cost You a Loan

So what if all you do is swap lolcatz photos? Now you have to check their credit rating before you friend someone. Best keep an eye on your LinkedIn contacts too! Just another 'service' from our friends in the world of finance.

[eleanorigby]

This seems hinky to me on many levels. Surely banks/lenders understand that your online presence is not the same as your RL one? I understand prospective employers getting leery about candidates displaying extreme behavior on FB and the like, but swapping dirty jokes or cat pics etc online does not make someone a loan risk.

[Wolf Larsen]

If I were going to do this, I'd collect a bunch of point in time social data and loan history data and then use it to train a neural net to figure out which things were predictive of repayment problems and what the time lag was. I'd then validate it with some new data to make sure it still had predictive value before I let it be a weight in the underwriting equation.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

Be careful who you friend, sports fans.

Your Deadbeat Facebook Friends Could Cost You a Loan

So what if all you do is swap lolcatz photos? Now you have to check their credit rating before you friend someone. Best keep an eye on your LinkedIn contacts too! Just another 'service' from our friends in the world of finance.

Seriously? You're worse than Der Trihs on religion. Can you show us on the doll where the banker touched you?

How many "banksters are evil" threads does any board need?

[Vandervecken]

I think we've figured out what Bri-Bri does for a living.

[JackieLikesVariety]

How many "banksters are evil" threads does any board need?

my god, will no one think of the poor banksters?

[LurkMeister]

Originally Posted by JackieLikesVariety

my god, will no one think of the poor banksters?

We are thinking of them. That's why we're so upset.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by LurkMeister

We are thinking of them. That's why we're so upset.

Why are you so upset? Does it really affect you? Seems like an overreaction.

[Chacoguy]

Originally Posted by Brian

Why are you so upset? Does it really affect you? Seems like an overreaction.

Good Point, I can't imagine how any of us are affected by banks.

[LurkMeister]

Yeah, why should anyone be upset that banks can foreclose on the wrong houses, or set up deposit and withdrawal systems that allow them to charge outrageous fees?

[Brian]

Originally Posted by LurkMeister

Yeah, why should anyone be upset that banks can foreclose on the wrong houses, or set up deposit and withdrawal systems that allow them to charge outrageous fees?

OMG! Banks have fees! Who knew?

Why, banks should just operate at most break-even, or a loss, right?

ETA: Evil Banksters!!!!!!

[LurkMeister]

I have no objection to banks charging fees. But when you have an opening balance of $200 on a day that the bank receives a deposit of $1000 and checks for $250, $30, and $50 and the bank processes all three checks before the deposit o they can charge three $35 NSF fees, I call that gouging.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by LurkMeister

I have no objection to banks charging fees. But when you have an opening balance of $200 on a day that the bank receives a deposit of $1000 and checks for $250, $30, and $50 and the bank processes all three checks before the deposit o they can charge three $35 NSF fees, I call that gouging.

I'm sure the bank explains upfront their policies on the availability of funds deposited, and their check clearing processes. It shouldn't be a surprise.

[Jaglavak]

Hey Brian, why don't you go shit up someone else's thread.

[Chacoguy]

I'm sure that everyone scrutinizes everything before clicking the "I Accept" box.

Hell, my Banker couldn't figure out what the interest rates were on my lines of credit. (He had to call someone).

[LurkMeister]

Originally Posted by Brian

I'm sure the bank explains upfront their policies on the availability of funds deposited, and their check clearing processes. It shouldn't be a surprise.

Yeah, I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that a check I hand them in the office takes five days to be credited to my account, but a check I write is deducted from my account the next day.

[Jaglavak]

To me the big point is that banks are becoming as evil as insurance companies. To please them you would have to live every aspect of your life according to their standards. Which are partially unpublished so you have to guess, but now even include your choice of friends.

This is flat out wrong and should not be permitted. Those vile sons of bitches will take it to the limit if we don't rise up on our hind feet and make it illegal. Keeping track of my bill paying habits is one thing, but my friends are absolutely none of anyone else's business, period.

FUCK the banksters.

[Chacoguy]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

Be careful who you friend, sports fans.

Your Deadbeat Facebook Friends Could Cost You a Loan

So what if all you do is swap lolcatz photos? Now you have to check their credit rating before you friend someone. Best keep an eye on your LinkedIn contacts too! Just another 'service' from our friends in the world of finance.

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

To me the big point is that banks are becoming as evil as insurance companies. To please them you would have to live every aspect of your life according to their standards. Which are partially unpublished so you have to guess, but now even include your choice of friends.

This is flat out wrong and should not be permitted. Those vile sons of bitches will take it to the limit if we don't rise up on our hind feet and make it illegal. Keeping track of my bill paying habits is one thing, but my friends are absolutely none of anyone else's business, period.

FUCK the banksters.

Hear Here.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Chacoguy

Hear Here.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...-say-hear-hear

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

To me the big point is that banks are becoming as evil as insurance companies. FUCK the banksters.

Banksters, insurance companies, and bears, oh my. But you didn't mention the military industrial complex. How did you forget them?

[hajario]

Originally Posted by Brian

Banksters, insurance companies, and bears, oh my. But you didn't mention the military industrial complex. How did you forget them?

Brian, please, discuss the issue all you want and in as forceful terms as you want but stop with the posts that are only insults and drive by snark in PPR threads.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by hajario

Brian, please, discuss the issue all you want and in as forceful terms as you want but stop with the posts that are only insults and drive by snark in PPR threads.

I will comply. But how is "fuck the banksters" anything other than drive-by snark?

Please reply. If this is the wrong forum to do so, tell me where to discuss it. Thank you.

[Jaglavak]

Here ya go.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by hajario

Brian, please, discuss the issue all you want and in as forceful terms as you want but stop with the posts that are only insults and drive by snark in PPR threads.

Where is your mod note for post #14 in this thread?

[ryevermouthbitters]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

To me the big point is that banks are becoming as evil as insurance companies. To please them you would have to live every aspect of your life according to their standards. Which are partially unpublished so you have to guess, but now even include your choice of friends.

This is flat out wrong and should not be permitted. Those vile sons of bitches will take it to the limit if we don't rise up on our hind feet and make it illegal. Keeping track of my bill paying habits is one thing, but my friends are absolutely none of anyone else's business, period.

FUCK the banksters.

Does the fact that only one of the companies cited in the article appears to be a bank and that all of them, including the "bank," are pretty much the opposite of the kinds of banks at which Jag is normally upset make you wonder, even for a second, whether you might be "hear, hear"ing when you should be "harrrumph"ing?

[hajario]

Originally Posted by Brian

I will comply. But how is "fuck the banksters" anything other than drive-by snark?

Please reply. If this is the wrong forum to do so, tell me where to discuss it. Thank you.

I'm just trying to keep this thread on the rails. We can discuss it further in an ATMB thread but I am going to sleep now and will be traveling much of tomorrow so I won't be able to get to it until late tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Brian

Where is your mod note for post #14 in this thread?

That was Jag asking you to knock it off in his own thread. I don't mind that as much.

[hajario]

Originally Posted by ryevermouthbitters

Does the fact that only one of the companies cited in the article appears to be a bank and that all of them, including the "bank," are pretty much the opposite of the kinds of banks at which Jag is normally upset make you wonder, even for a second, whether you might be "hear, hear"ing when you should be "harrrumph"ing?

This is how you do it, Brian.

[Brian]

This is Jag's thread? That shit never flew on the Durp. It's OK here? really? wow.

[Chacoguy]

Originally Posted by Brian

This is Jag's thread? That shit never flew on the Durp. It's OK here? really? wow.

This is the first I've heard of it.......I got nuthin'.

[Jaglavak]

Originally Posted by ryevermouthbitters

Does the fact that only one of the companies cited in the article appears to be a bank and that all of them, including the "bank," are pretty much the opposite of the kinds of banks at which Jag is normally upset make you wonder, even for a second, whether you might be "hear, hear"ing when you should be "harrrumph"ing?

True enough, I should have been more clear that this is just the leading edge. However if there is no widespread objection from the public I expect the rest of the industry to follow. I think us regular schmoes should get this practice outlawed before it has a chance to grow.


As an aside, I normally despise the big 10 banks due to their criminal business practices. But I could find room in my heart for outfits like LendUp too. From their web page:

Small-dollar lending is broken:

Last year, 15 million Americans used a payday loan. Many of these people were looking for a simple fix to a short-term financial problem, but ended up trapped in long-term debt caused by hidden fees, costly rollovers and opaque terms and conditions.

This is a big problem. We have a solution: Ladders, not chutes.

At LendUp we believe there are two types of financial products: chutes and ladders. Ladders help people up, chutes push people down. One of our core values is that every product we offer at LendUp is a ladder, measured by the long-term financial wellbeing of our customers. LendUp loans are a stepping-stone towards better credit, and all the products we offer are in service of commitment to getting our customers to a better financial state.

Learn more about our social mission at lendup.org

And then they offer to lend me money at an interest rate of 395% APR. That's not a social mission, that's loan sharking. Wrapping it in glurge just makes it more sickening.

[KidVermicious]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

FUCK the banksters.

Word.

[mswas]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis

The Obama campaign was using it to try and get your friends to campaign to you. It didn't really work out for them, but that's more because the tech is immature rather than it not being a thing.

Yes, your everything is being monitored for marketing purposes by everyone, telcoms, film studios, banks and the government. EVERYONE who can afford it.

But the Banksters are not just looking at it in terms of qualifying or denying you a loan. They are looking at it in terms of their investment in you, it's a lot more complex than just, "You know a bunch of stoners so we're going to deny you a loan."

[Jaglavak]

So that makes it OK?

[mswas]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

So that makes it OK?

*shrugs* It is what it is. It's not going away anytime soon. And considering it's a major growth sector of the economy, perhaps we don't even want it to.

The information age is a whole new world, but most people are trying to fit it within the models they are used to that they don't understand it and won't be able to understand it until they release some of their preconceived ideas.

There are a lot of things that simply would not be possible without these sorts of things. Paradoxically it can end up with people having easier access to credit because if they can analyze the risk more effectively then that's what's important to their portfolio and balance sheets.

More information for them also means more information for you. And creating laws that limit what people can do with publicly available data are problematic in and of themselves. These scenarios lead to scenarios like the 'accredited investor' the sort of market protectionism that is meant to keep the hoi polloi from being scammed also keeps them out of the higher level financial system. That can happen with data too. Any sort of protectionism meant to keep the banks hands off your data will likely restrict YOUR access to data more than the banks that will go through the expensive accreditation procedures that demonstrate to the financial regulators that they are responsible stewards of that data. Kind of like what Dianne Feinstein is trying to do to make it so independent journalists have no right to protect their sources. They must be employed by the gatekeeping organizations in order to have the right to protect their sources.

So I am not sure what you think should be done. Banks use publicly available data to make risk determinations when supplying loans. So what do you think should be done? How should it be handled? Should banks not develop risk profiles based upon information they have access to?

[Jaglavak]

Banks should not be allowed to enquire about your social networks, period.

[SmartAleq]

Non profit state banks are looking better every day. Tightly regulated state banks look even better. Fuck the banksters, indeed. They're so used to being the only game in town that they just figure they can do any stupid shit that crosses their pointy little pinheads. Time they had some meaningful competition that doesn't expect you to bring a five gallon bucket of lube along every time you have an interaction with them--and then charges you space rent for setting the bucket down on the floor.

[mswas]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

Banks should not be allowed to enquire about your social networks, period.

Should anyone?

[mswas]

Originally Posted by SmartAleq

Non profit state banks are looking better every day. Tightly regulated state banks look even better. Fuck the banksters, indeed. They're so used to being the only game in town that they just figure they can do any stupid shit that crosses their pointy little pinheads. Time they had some meaningful competition that doesn't expect you to bring a five gallon bucket of lube along every time you have an interaction with them--and then charges you space rent for setting the bucket down on the floor.

Some friends of mine are trying to put together a debit account for the unbanked.

http://www.occupycooperative.com/

[hatesfreedom]

I don't see any problem with banks running background checks on people before giving them a substantial loan. The information is out there and they have no regulation which says they can't check to see how many public posts you made about your future financial situation in regards your baby momma.

I'd like to see more banking regulations on a wide variety of other issues so that one day our banks might be as stable as Canadian banks. But alas, we will have to wait and see.

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by mswas

Should anyone?

Ernie Banks sent me a friend request.

[Jaglavak]

Originally Posted by mswas

Should anyone?

I would say no. Look at it from the individual's point of view. If banks, employers, and landlords are allowed to dig through your entire social life then it immediately follows that you would be required to live your social life according to their requirements. Worse, those requirements are secret so now you're guessing. This is freedom? Dance, monkey, dance!

Contrast this with the situation 30 years ago. A bank, employer, or landlord might have asked for references. So that meant you had to come up with three or four solid citizens who were willing to say a good word for you. That's a whole different deal than having the bastards sit in judgement upon your entire social life.

I think if this practice catches on it will mean the end of Faceplant and a mass migration to some platform that the sons of bitches can't get to.

[Lounsbury]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

Be careful who you friend, sports fans.

Your Deadbeat Facebook Friends Could Cost You a Loan

So what if all you do is swap lolcatz photos? Now you have to check their credit rating before you friend someone. Best keep an eye on your LinkedIn contacts too! Just another 'service' from our friends in the world of finance.

As RMB has pointed out, the entities doing this are not banks. They're in fact non-banks, more or less the sort of thing you've wanted to emerge judging by your past ranting. Except of course it would appear you have no analytical nor rational consistency in such at all. It's really you simply have an irrational hatred of the existence of financing as such. Nothing particularly novel in that, has existed, along with other areas of unreason and woolyheadedness for time immemorial.

The actual business (on the rather dubious assumption that the wooley headed innumrate journalists at the Leftist magazine understood what they were being told) rather strikes me as a poorly thought out strategy by some niche players.

Wolf describes what would be done if a serious strategy:

Originally Posted by Wolf Larsen

If I were going to do this, I'd collect a bunch of point in time social data and loan history data and then use it to train a neural net to figure out which things were predictive of repayment problems and what the time lag was. I'd then validate it with some new data to make sure it still had predictive value before I let it be a weight in the underwriting equation.

Lenders that try to use shit as data will essentially make shit loans and the market will take care of them. They'll wither and die either by generating a bad reputation or by making terrible underwriting decisions and losing their shirts.

Not that underwriting consumer lending is not hard enough as it is.

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

True enough, I should have been more clear that this is just the leading edge. However if there is no widespread objection from the public I expect the rest of the industry to follow. I think us regular schmoes should get this practice outlawed before it has a chance to grow.

Outlaw what? Looking at publicly available data that is published in public and drawing conclusions?

I am sure that this could not in any way be an irrationally stupid and impossible to implement idea.

As an aside, I normally despise the big 10 banks due to their criminal business practices.

Or put more accurately "I normally despise [any financial activity] because I resent money."

Originally Posted by SmartAleq

Non profit state banks are looking better every day.

Only to ignorant hemp heads who know fairly nothing about anything in particular, reaching judgments on addled emotional responses.

State banks are the route to poverty and broken economic systems.

The ranting against banks and lenders is nothing novel. Goes all the way back to hating the Jewish moneylenders and all the prejudice that to the ethnic activity attached. Irrational emotional garbage.

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

I would say no.

Then don't put your information in public. Social networks are self publishing.

Look at it from the individual's point of view. If banks, employers, and landlords are allowed to dig through your entire social life then it immediately follows that you would be required to live your social life according to their requirements.

If you are publishing your social life, then it is not digging. Period. And if you want someone else's money to fund yourself, well then yes, you have to play by the persons lending requirements.

The use of social data is as old as lending itself. Unvetted, the average person is a terrible credit risk (as the failure of first iterations of "Peer to Peer" lending showed - people are lying thieves in general and happy to run away with other peoples money if there are limited consequences).

It is nonsensical and an irrational emotional response to ban using perfectly public data.

Worse, those requirements are secret so now you're guessing. This is freedom? Dance, monkey, dance!

Freedom has fuck all to do with it you idiot.

Freedom as a concept includes no automatic right to you getting other people's money.

So, again, idiotic - drooling idiotarian argumentation that is irrelevant, mere emotive nonsense string together emotional hot buttons of no logical connexion.

Contrast this with the situation 30 years ago. A bank, employer, or landlord might have asked for references. So that meant you had to come up with three or four solid citizens who were willing to say a good word for you. That's a whole different deal than having the bastards sit in judgement upon your entire social life.

In the real world, for loans of importance, such references were double checked, and asked to provide themselves additional references that were not coming from you directly. (never mind the denial factor for those persons who could not provide references that met an individual or lending committee's particular social prejudices of the day).

In many ways, not only do you have not a clue as to the degree to which a lender may have "invaded" the privacy of the potential borrower,

Your idealised vision is at once factually weak and rather ignores that (i) reference checking effectively is pre-internet social media tracking (ii) that such checking has always existed and indeed in the past likely had greater discrimination to non-established borrowers - thus being a barrier to access to finance for the non-elite as a general matter.

I think if this practice catches on it will mean the end of Faceplant and a mass migration to some platform that the sons of bitches can't get to.

So reality all this is about your simultaneous irrational hatred of social media phenomena and financing, bundled together in one incoherent, ill informed package of poorly thought through nonsense, as part of a weak-minded protest that some how the world does not work to your internally contradictory and generally incoherent world view.

[Jaglavak]

:: golf clap ::

I'll slap you around a bit later, got stuff to do right now.

[JackieLikesVariety]

State banks are the route to poverty and broken economic systems.

complete BS - North Dakota has a State Bank and it saves them money. it totally makes sense for a state to do their own banking.

[Lounsbury]

Originally Posted by JackieLikesVariety

complete BS - North Dakota has a State Bank and it saves them money. it totally makes sense for a state to do their own banking.

My comment was about hemp head's rambling with respect to this question of retail lending. Your blundering intervention merely serves to illustrate your primitive and impoverished understanding.

State lending institutions are without any question inferior economic mediation institutions as compared to the private lending, with very few exceptions.

Of course as to the entity you mention, wikipedia helpfully informs us:

Other entities may also open accounts at the Bank; however, BND offers fewer retail services than other institutions, and it has only one office. These limit its competitiveness in consumer banking.[2] Instead, BND has taken a role more akin to a central bank, and has many functions, such as check clearing, that might be expected from a branch office of the Federal Reserve. The bank does have an account with the Federal Reserve Bank, but deposits are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, instead being guaranteed by the general fund of the state of North Dakota itself and the taxpayers of the state.[2]

It is effectively not an operating lending institution but a central clearing house for provincial funding.

In short, irrelevant to the subject.

I do thank you for illustrating gross ignorance and the ease which headline terminology fools.

[Lounsbury]

Originally Posted by LurkMeister

Yeah, I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that a check I hand them in the office takes five days to be credited to my account, but a check I write is deducted from my account the next day.

What amuses about this kind of post is that it illustrates the deep and gross ignorance, and essentially childishness of most compliants about banking.

In fact the delays and debit / credit cycle of payments is quite regulated and and very much in place to protect cretinous gullible idiots like yourself from fraud and error.

The delay on crediting is, as my memory serves relative to USA and retail, a matter of central bank payments regulation to ensure that funds are properly available - that is the account being debited has the actual funds available, that no routing error has occurred.

Oddly enough this does not happen by magic, but by actual process and cross confirmation.

Strange that, and it takes real time.

But no, no matter what, the childish segment of the public will always whinge on about unfairness that on one hand their account is not magically instantaneously credited - oh but they should also bear no cost nor responsibility for any payment going wrong, nor should their own account have any monies withdrawn until the very last moment, nor should they pay if for some reason (of course not their own fault) said account does not have actual funds.

My young boy of four has similar attitudes about availability of parental funds, with similar maturity in reason and analysis.

[Lounsbury]

Now, as to genuine objections possible

(noting aside again that Jaggie and hemphead amuse in that the very institutions cited in this article of doubtful accuracy about its own subjet are those that would break the monopoly of the traditional banks they love to hate in all incoherent and internally contradictory raging).

Genuine potential issues relative to a widespread usage of such practices would really be about (i) incorrect profiles - lender uses the data and information of another Jaggie the Kneejerk Ranter, not you Jaggie the Kneejerk Ranter, with the incorrect source not disclosed; (ii) discriminatory data usage attached to prejudiced analysis based on protected classes, e.g. sex, ethnicity. Not that this problem needs social media to be a problem.

There is a legitimate public concern as to disclosure to avoid error. Other than that, the use of public information that a person has published willingly in public fora (however stupid and ill advised that is) is hardly some wild new frontier. Lenders have made decisions on similar information arising from reference checking - in many ways less objective than what might be derived from this data - for time immemorial.

Having some experience with retail lending financial innovation to push out lending frontiers I rather doubt that the data contained in social media is all that useful for lending. Indeed, unless this was rigorously vetted as per Wolf, it rather strikes me as a step backward, as one of the most useful innovations in the past 30 years has been objective scoring, rather than lending officer gut analysis, on data driven criteria like payment habits, accounts openings and the like that show clear statistical correlations with default behaviour.

The whinging about having to live as the lender expects in order to get the lender's (or really the depositors and investors monies for which the lender is an agent) money is a childish absurdity. You have no natural right to other people's cash. If the lender finds that ranting cranks and hempheads do not make good lending risks, well tough. Do without other peoples money or change your ways.

[LurkMeister]

I'm always fascinated by people who are incapable of pointing out erroneous statements made by other people without resulting to insults such a "hemp heads", "drooling idiotarian argumentation", and "cretinous gullible idiots".

[SmartAleq]

It's a sort of voluntary Tourette's, really.

[ryevermouthbitters]

Well you know, you get compared to rapists and called pro-starvation by a bunch of clueless idiots enough times and you start to wonder if remaining reserved has any benefits.