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Credit scores are a big deal in the modern world, especially in America. Here, banks, car dealerships, and others will literally judge you as a person based on your credit score. If you have a low score, then you are obviously bad, regardless of your situation. If you have a high one, then you are obviously good, regardless of your current habits. But it is actually far crazier than that. If you actually are a responsible person and pay off your debts, your score can actually go down. Yes, you read that right. Paying off your debts will actually make your credit score go down. This actually leads to the concept of the \u2018credit building loan\u2019. In this perverse concept, a person actually goes in debt to build a better credit score. Yes, this is completely nuts. It also keeps people in what amounts to financial slavery.

Think about it. If you want to buy a car, you first have to go into debt for something else in order to get your score high enough to buy the car. Then the debt for the car helps you get your score high enough to go into even more debt for a house. If you want to go to college, or help your kids to go, you have to have a certain amount of debt in order to get any sort assistance. If you\u2019ve been responsible and paid them off, you\u2019ll be expected to shell out for college in cash. To put it simply, our current financial system encourages and rewards people for being in debt. Which, again, is insane. If the above isn\u2019t enough to convince you, the word \u2018mortgage\u2019 comes from the Latin for \u2018death grip\u2019. Let that one sink in.\xa0

Credit scores as they have been traditionally calculated rely on limited data, focused only on past behaviors. Now though, more data than ever is available and it is being used in new ways to calculate your ability to pay off a loan. Rather than just aggregating how often you pay off revolving debt, credit companies can now look at how fast you drive, how much money gets spent how often and where. They can even see where and when you take vacations. All of that behavior can be analyzed for risk in near real time.\xa0

This marriage between big data and big credit can be beneficial in a number of ways. First, since the data is more recent, it is easier to track changes in behavior that indicate more or less risky behavior. If someone who has been at risk in the past suddenly finds a new job and starts paying an electric bill, while also cancelling their cable bill the chances of getting a desired loan go up. Rather than it taking a year to build up a credit score based on the changed behaviors, the increase in responsible behavior can be noticed right away. Similarly, if a person who has been responsibly paying off cards and loans for years suddenly starts going to the casino, the dealership has some reason to hold back on that new car loan.

It becomes easier to take extenuating circumstances into account as well. If someone suddenly has trouble making a payment because of a recent job loss or divorce, that can be weighed against other data to see if it reflects a temporary circumstance or a real shift towards irresponsible behavior. That kind of information may not matter in regards to a new loan but can still apply when trying to rent a new apartment.\xa0

Isn\u2019t it a little scary though that the credit score companies can access all that data about you? A little, though in this case it\u2019s easy to see how it can actually be used to benefit the company and you. However, if you are still uneasy about that, we don\u2019t blame you. In that case, we recommend that you sign up with TARTLE and synch your various accounts. That will allow you to take back control of your data and only let even the credit score companies see it as you see fit. And when you do choose to share it, you can actually get paid for it.\xa0

What\u2019s your data worth? www.tartle.co\xa0