[pkaodev]

What are you on about? It's financial providers deciding whether you are or aren't risky for them to work with, based on your financial decisions.

Not repaying loans and using credit cards to get cash -> you're probably bad with money -> lenders are unlikely to get their money back from you.

[asdff]

Because there is already a barrier to prevent that. Defaulting on the home loan or not paying rent and facing eviction. Having a barrier based on past behavior is stupid. "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Funny how that works for investment banks to cover their ass but they can't see how it might also apply to individuals.

[TimorousBestie]

> based on your financial decisions

A lot of individuals saw their credit scores decline during the Great Recession, even if they weren’t involved in subprime lending.

This myth that credit scores are entirely due to your own financial decisions is up there with myths people believe about names or time zones.

[StackRanker3000]

I realize that you responded to a specific statement, not necessarily the entire context of the thread. However:

Saying that a person’s credit score is entirely due to their own financial decisions is incorrect because it’s overly simplistic, that’s true, although the main factor is that person’s behavior (whether that behavior is their fault or not is a different story). It can also depend on circumstances specific to the person but not directly related to their own actions (e.g. their credit provider revises credit limits across the board due to external factors, so their credit utilization changes too, without them having used any more or less of it).

In addition, and what you’re alluding to, is that these models are continuously revised. A set of behaviors and circumstances that lead to a higher score in one economic environment may not do the same in another.

Credit scores as implemented in for instance the US are not a direct reflection of a person’s moral character or intended as a reward for good behavior. They’re uncaring algorithms optimized solely for determining how risky it is to lend you money, so that financial institutions can more accurately spread that risk across their customers and maximize their profits. This also enables credit providers to give out more credit overall, based on less biased criteria (not unbiased, because models are never perfect and financial circumstances can be proxies for other attributes).

One can feel however one wants about whether this system is good or not. But it’s definitely different in kind to ”social credit” systems like the one China has implemented, which directly takes into account far more non-financial factors and determines far more non-financial outcomes, effectively exerting much more control over many facets of people’s lives.

[pipes]

Was that related to their social interactions and associated with or being related to political activists? That's how China's scoring works.