[HN Gopher] Experian is a pile of dark pattern garbage
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Experian is a pile of dark pattern garbage
Author : stanleydrew
Score : 177 points
Date : 2023-03-13 21:14 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.benton.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.benton.io)
| [deleted]
| time4tea wrote:
| Hilarious that this is posted on a site - tumblr - that itself is
| full of dark pattern garbage.
|
| "Open in app" whizzing about "I love tracking cookies" over half
| the screen.
| nimbius wrote:
| true story: the last Harley Davidson i bought after I made
| Journeyman was financed through H-D Financing because in the 21st
| century vehicle companies are just thinly veiled loan companies.
| During the sit-down with the moneyman he grunted a few times
| looking at Experian and Equifax before flipping the screen to me
| and asking to pull up my FICO score instead from my credit card
| company. it took ten seconds and i got approved for a pretty good
| rate. When I asked what happened he said Experian says no to
| anything without the last name Rockefeller, and Equifax can never
| find anyone before it crashes.
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| I hope you used your own computing device to log into the
| credit card lender's site...
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Experian is the only agency that doesn't allow you to lock your
| credit for free, only "freeze" it. The differences aren't
| immediately obvious, but locking can be undone (nearly)
| instantaneously, whereas un-freezing takes many days.
|
| If the others can do it, Experian could do, but they treat
| protecting your identity as a revenue stream. Disgusting.
| ezfe wrote:
| unfreezing is instant, I have mine frozen and unfreeze it when
| I need to apply for credit without any problem. they just lie
| to make it sound less appealing.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Then explain why they _also_ offer locking (for a fee), and
| what the difference is?
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I ignore that part. I just know that I can instantly
| freeze/unfreeze. Just did it last week in fact, at all 3.
| urthor wrote:
| What software is dark pattern free again?
|
| VS Code is filled with dark patterns.
|
| Most commercial software, except the very expensive paid kind, is
| filled with dark patterns.
|
| Even FOSS, I've seen large chunks of FOSS which seem _designed_
| to encourage you to make a pull request.
|
| "Classic" Apply software, when they were under threat from
| Microsoft, usually isn't.
|
| Modern Apple software is filled by "go to Apple store, go to
| iCloud pay us money" dark patterns.
|
| Once you start looking for dark patterns, you can't stop.
| narrowtux wrote:
| You can't tell me they are on the same level. I'm infuriated
| just reading all the issues people have with this experian
| service.
| flaviut wrote:
| I filed a complaint with the CFPB about exactly this last year:
| https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-compl...
|
| Their response was:
|
| 1. a notice that they needed more time to handle my complaint,
| and then on the deadline to respond 2. 650 words that can be
| summarized as a) "Experian Consumer Services" is not the same as
| Experian, the credit reporting agency b) The terms of service
| allow Experian Consumer Services to do what they want c) You are
| already unsubscribed from emails from our partners
|
| Regardless, I'd suggest everyone else affected by this issue file
| a complaint as well. At the very least, these complaints are not
| cheap to process.
| markdoubleyou wrote:
| I have a free Experian account that I look at every few months.
|
| Every time I log in, a big, disorienting interstitial appears and
| pitches me on Experian CreditWorks Premium ($25/month), with
| fields asking for my credit card info. It's designed like it's
| part of a normal registration/login process that you're supposed
| to fill in. You have to scroll down past all of it to the bottom
| of the page and click the washed-out, kind-of-disabled-looking
| button that says "No, keep my current membership", at which point
| they reluctantly take you to your normal account overview page.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| Yes, every time I do a double take. My brain is thinking should
| I press the button that looks disabled or should I press this
| shiny looking button here...
| 88913527 wrote:
| I noticed the word "interstital" in the slug for this horrible
| flow, and since you mentioned it, I figured I'd look up what
| the word meant. It's "an intervening space, especially a very
| small one." A fitting definition for something that has no
| purpose in existing.
| 40four wrote:
| Yeah it's really annoying. I guess I've just sensitized myself
| to ignore it and click through.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| Beyond the inconvenience, it's ultimately just insulting. I can
| only imagine the number of decimal places at which conversions
| budged upward from such a transparently belligerent
| implementation of a modal, and yet some miserable product
| manager made the call to ship it. What an utter waste of
| everything that went into producing such a wretched, parasitic
| product.
|
| Have I mentioned I don't particularly like Experian?
| nerdponx wrote:
| It's insulting because it reflects exactly how decision
| makers at Experian feel about you as a human being.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Please file an FTC complaint. It'll get to the right people.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/10/...
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/reports/bringing-dark-patterns-light
| markdoubleyou wrote:
| The problem is that they don't blatantly violate any of the
| policy bullets in that FTC press release... all the terms are
| spelled out in the interstitial. The issue is that the design
| goes out of its way to give it a very _mandatory_ vibe. I don
| 't log in very often, but I always have to catch myself
| ("...wait, what is this? Do I have to do this?"), and then
| remember to go hunting for the NoThanks button. It has a very
| opt-out feel.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Let the regulator evaluate if they want to take action. Not
| filing a complaint guarantees no action will be taken.
| Filing the complaint takes <5 min. My two cents.
| tracker1 wrote:
| What bugs me most is the "your email address is compromised"
| messages... they're meaningless... my email address is nearly two
| decades old, I'm sure it's on many lists. But without any
| indication of where/how or if there's a password associated with
| any breach, it's just noise.
| quwert95 wrote:
| As bad as Experian is, at least the baseline product works for
| free unlike TransUnion.
| jsharkey wrote:
| A few months ago I was able to bypass creating an account (and
| sidestepping all the dark patterns) by just calling their
| automated phone number and unfreezing with my PIN. Was pretty
| painless.
| tristanb wrote:
| The credit agencies suck in every possible way. They should be
| legislated into obscurity.
| hildebrand_rare wrote:
| Those upsell marketing emails without unsubscribe links because
| they are "account related emails" are the worst. I quickly solved
| the problem by marking everything from Experian as spam, but I
| can't think of another service where I've gone searching for an
| unsubscribe link and haven't found one. Their messaging at the
| bottom of these emails for anyone who is curious:
|
| "This is not a marketing email -- you're receiving this message
| to notify you of a recent change to your account. If you've
| unsubscribed from Experian CreditWorks(sm) Basic emails in the
| past, don't worry -- you no longer receive newsletters or special
| offers."
|
| Checking my spam folder, it looks like I've already received two
| of them this calendar month.
| alexose wrote:
| I signed up for an Experian account in order to correct a
| mistake on my credit report-- They had listed a bank account
| under my name that was created well before I was born, and it
| was tanking my credit rating.
|
| Unfortunately I used my main email to sign up (to correct
| _their_ mistake) and started getting those non-unsubscribable
| emails shortly after. So insulting. I did end up fixing it by
| changing my account email address to fuckyou@experian.sucks,
| though.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| Bank of America also sends me marketing emails, labeled "You're
| receiving this servicing email as part of your existing
| relationship with us."
| flir wrote:
| > another service where I've gone searching for an unsubscribe
| link and haven't found one
|
| I get medicare.gov emails (because some idiot wrote down their
| email address wrong - obviously no double opt in either) I
| can't unsub from.
| legohead wrote:
| I file a report with the FTC [1] when I receive such emails.
|
| [1] https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/
| nerdponx wrote:
| I've tried to do this, and everything seems oriented toward
| reporting fraud and scams, rather than CAN-SPAM violations. I
| had this issue with Comcast/Xfinity not honoring my opt-out
| requests for months, and only stopped it when I managed to
| get on the phone with some kind of supervisor (it pays to be
| nice to rank-and-file call center employeees!) and bluffed
| them with calm but stern threats of "legal action".
| [deleted]
| cwkoss wrote:
| Privatized credit rating agencies are so outdated and barbaric.
| Feds should nationalize them into a single public service run
| without profit.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I'm tempted to agree. It might even be self-funding once you
| consider the revenue that a credit rating agency brings in.
| winstonprivacy wrote:
| Don't get me started on Experian. Their core service is providing
| credit scores to lenders. Years ago, I went through a rigorous
| process to clean up my credit, something which took months but
| was at least honest on their part.
|
| Then they began erecting hurdles, such as a neverending stream of
| rejection letters requesting further detail when trying to
| investigate a report. I knew at that point weren't being above
| board because one of the companies on my credit report had gone
| spectacularly out of business during the 2008 financial crisis
| (Countrywide... Remember them?). This company was no longer
| responding to credit inquiries and yet, Experian failed to remove
| the offending entries.
|
| Now they are brazenly advertising a service for consumers to
| raise their credit score... Yes, the very same one they gatekeep.
|
| Fortunately, I have no use for credit any more.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| I think Andrew raises a good point which is: how exactly do we
| raise awareness of these sort of dark patterns that are
| tantamount to fraud in many cases (he cites the "mum test" which
| I entirely agree with)
|
| Is there a lobby group, or a company that focuses on targeting
| and shaming these things? I would be 100% up for devoting a few
| hours a month, or even paid employment, to bringing these sort of
| people down.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Hell yeah, I'd be down too.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| Your targets have hundreds of millions of dollars to thwart
| your group, whether legally or with counter messaging, or
| through lobbying. Your group, being paid by a trickle of
| donations, is highly dependent on maintaining high motivation
| in order to marshall the energy necessary to go at this day
| in and day out for what could be years or even decades of
| frustrating, unrewarded effort.
|
| This is a fundamental problem with large scale fraud, which
| is that the fraudsters have the money and the established
| networks first, and everyone has to fight to claw it back
| from their grasp while also disrupting the networks that
| enabled the fraud to grow in the first place.
|
| The "everyone" being those from whom the money is being
| taken, who are therefore that much less equipped to mount a
| sustained attack.
|
| tl;dr you'll be battling the bullshit asymmetry principle,
| except with money
| cutler wrote:
| Experian should be illegal under GDPR. It operates without the
| user/victim's consent and the victim has zero rights over the
| data collected, much of which can have a drastic effect on the
| victim's life. I can't believe Experian exists.
| mindslight wrote:
| This framework is spot on. The US desperately needs privacy
| legislation like the GDPR, or the surveillance industry will go
| right on building their de-facto government that is utterly
| unaccountable.
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(page generated 2023-03-13 23:00 UTC)