We have been talking about data in our class and recently this had made me reflect on how far our data travels and how fast it can travel to so many different places.
I look back to when I purchased a car. At the time I allowed the dealership to help me with financing options (big mistake). They ended up running my credit with a ton of different banks and picked the best one. Of course I never read the entire document before signing my signature prior to them running my credit over 10 times (yes 10 hard inquires). My information was sent to all these different banks and lenders and from there I started getting offers in the mail for car loans and refinancing options. I received phone calls endlessly. When I signed that piece of paper to run my credit in order to find a bank to finance my loan, I did not know I was signing to have continual harassment phone calls and more spam mail sent to my home.
Have you ever googled “best car loans” or “refinance loans”. Well I did! Over the pandemic home refinancing rates dropped low. I became interested to see who had the lowest rate and what my new mortgage could be. I went on a few websites, one of which being “lending tree” among others but I typed in my basic information (again please learn from me and never do this) to find the lowest rates among the banks/lenders to start my research but when you click that tiny box that says “I agree to the terms and conditions” I had no idea my information was going to be sent out to hundreds of different lenders. Within SECONDS my phone was blowing up with numerous calls and texts. It just goes to show how fast our data can be transmitted and sent to numerous companies within seconds. I received phone calls about refinancing my home for almost as long as 8 months after I filled in my information. I finally learned to tell them that I no longer had a home so they would take me off their list. What scares me is to think that now all these companies have my data, and for how long? What else can they use it for? Can they send it to other companies?
Do you think that we need more regulations and outlines on these lending websites about what happens to our data after we simply click “yes”?
Do you think these 3rd party lenders now have free reign of our data?
What else do you think these companies are doing with our data once they get a hold of it?
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