We seem to have talked past each other. I have no issue with credit reports per-se. Rather, I believe that they systemically mis-categorize bad behavior as good and underreport good behavior that is non-traditional.

Also, I have no idea what you are talking about with Church things. I never mentioned Church or basing lending on social ties.

>I am someone who believes the world would be better off without these companies. My argument generally goes like this:

>Credit existed before reporting agencies

So, you like credit reporting, but not credit reporting agencies? Can you see how I might have missed this subtlety, since you never even tried to justify it?

Upon examination, your position isn't even against "credit reporting agencies", but "having wrong credit information". Great, everyone agrees, but it's unclear what you're saying should be different from the current system, now that you say you like "credit reporting".

>Also, I have no idea what you are talking about with Church things. I never mentioned Church or basing lending on social ties.

Or you forgot already. The Church came up because I pointed out that, yes, lending did exist before credit reporting agencies, but only based on these informal social cues, like whether someone "seems like a good Christian man" (gender intended) or whether your went to the same church (yes, church specifically). Then we had this exchange:

>>[lending was based on] whether the banker knows you from church as a good C̶h̶r̶i̶s̶t̶i̶a̶n̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶ person

>Is that supposed to be a bad thing?

Now you're acting like none of that happened, and also calling me a troll.

If there's a clear argument, I'd like to engage with it, but I can't discern what it is from your comments.

You're first comment suggested that I wanted to go back to some glorious past where credit reporting was better. I didn't say this and if you misinterpreted that from "Credit existed before reporting agencies", that's a shame.

It seems what you jumped to was that I think that it's better in the past, which I didn't say and don't mean.

What I meant is that it is possible to evaluate peoples credit one-by-one without having it all pre-gathered up front by a central reporting agency. This is more expensive, but I am fine with that.

The way it would work is similar to how it already works with underwriting. You submit a lot of paperwork on your account histories, rent payments, any leases or other contracts you are in now or recently, etc. These documents establish your creditworthiness.

For example, this is how I got a car loan. I had no credit score at all, but a bank was willing to give me a loan because they saw a bunch of docs saying I pay stuff on time and that I have a good job that pays enough to pay off the loan.

And also it wasn't what I focused on in my original comment anyways. I focused on the bad data, mis-categorization, and underreporting.

Edit:

Maybe this helps clarify things...

    if credit agencies exist:
        do better by...
            - improving process for removing incorrect info
            - stop encouraging people to use credit cards
            - track rent, utilities and other good behavior better
    else:
        it's not a disaster because underwriting already requires all the docs needed to establish creditworthiness