When Axton Betz-Hamilton set up her first utility bill at college, she soon realized something was very, very wrong.
It turned out she’d been a victim of identity theft—and it had destroyed her credit rating.
In 2001, when she was a 19-year-old student, Betz-Hamilton’s new utility provider demanded a $100 security deposit to turn on her service, citing her credit score.
“I thought it was because I didn’t have enough credit,” she told Fortune. But when a copy of her credit report turned up in her mailbox six weeks later, she learned the opposite was true.
Turns out not so much
How the fuck? That sounds illegal. How can you be held liable for others people bullshit?
Because it’s a hell of a lot easier to hold poor people liable for other people’s bullshit than it is to hold rich people liable for not honoring fraud reports. One can afford a lawyer, and knows the other can’t.
Because credit agencies aren’t related to the government. They’re literally just companies that made up arbitrary systems and convinced banks to go along with it
They’ll take off debts from active companies if you have a police report, because I’ve had that done when my identity was stolen.