Absolute Disgust: TransUnion’s site locks your credit report account if you use Firefox-based browsers.

So I was looking over my credit report again yesterday, and now TransUnion locks your account and says “suspicious activity detected” if you use a Firefox-based Web browser.

I tried dropping off the VPN, clearing cookies, and even lying about my user agent to all TransUnion domains, but the person on “support” finally got aggravated and said I should be using Google Chrome.

So I patiently explained that Google Chrome is proprietary software, it spies on the user, and I don’t use Chrome to browse on any device I own because I shouldn’t have to. And that basically it’s turned into the new Internet Explorer.

In the end, I installed Ungoogled Chromium from FlatHub, and copied over my username and password into it, and after he removed the account lock again, it let me log in using Ungoogled Chromium.

Now I have to keep an entire browser around to watch my credit score and dispute anything negative that hits it that I disagree with.

I’ve noticed that many collections agencies fail to respond to disputes. In fact, my TransUnion score is the highest of all because it tends to happen there more that you win by default. The entire delinquent car account that went to bankruptcy fell off TransUnion even though they responded to the other two bureaus.

In the United States, it’s very hard to rent an apartment now without passing a “TransUnion SmartMove” background check and credit report. It’s already difficult for having a bankruptcy reporting on your score, but the size of the bankruptcy also matters, so if you can nail a few bankruptcy accounts that fall off, especially big ones, and then aggressively monitor and dispute anything that’s happened since then, it’s a little easier to get an apartment.

It’s surprisingly legal in every state in this country to consider credit reports that have nothing to do with prior landlord-tenant disputes in whether you can get housing, and credit scores in general in whether you can get affordable car insurance or not, or whether you can even get _a_ job, especially one that involves handling money going into a cash register. Getting a job is terrible these days.

The government bullshits everyone into thinking the economy is great and companies just can’t find anyone that wants to work, and then it’s “Get in line, there’s a lot of people who are unemployed. We’ll make you piss in a cup and undergo a credit check, and we want to weigh you and check your teeth….now grab your balls and cough.”. Which may just be slight exaggeration, but it’s bad out there.

MyFICO Forums banned me several times for saying there’s absolutely nothing wrong with fighting collection agencies because this is blackmail and they’re trying to make it so you can’t even work or live anywhere or drive a car. Oh well, I guess. They make their money selling acess to your own credit scores, which ought to be a crime, but hey….America.