Timely Insights From Conversation with a Nautical Buoy Tender Nearly Forty Years Ago

             Once upon a time, when many of us regularly traveled by air, I took pleasure in striking up conversations with amenable, fellow passengers.  I have fond memories of insightful chats, one of which has particular resonance just now.

            Enroute to or from Florida, I learned about the life of a buoy tender based on a remote Bahamian island.  While I suspect, such facilities no longer require an on-site manager, my travel buddy hinted that the defense and intelligence community—and not just the Coast Guard—needed someone able to keep certain radio links up and running 24/7.

            The logistics of maritime telecommunications interested the techno geek in me, but what matter more triggered my academic training in communications theory, such as agenda setting, persuasion and manipulation.  Living for weeks alone in a remote part of the surprisingly large expanse of Bahamian islands, the buoy tender offered a one person study in the effects of frequent consumption of one—and seemingly only one—type of media.  Forty years ago, satellite radio did not exist and the buoy tender did not know about, or cared to pursue the plentiful options via shortwave radio.  Television and FM radio signals from Florida or Bahamian towns did not reach him and he had only a few video tapes in possession.

            Only one technology provided reliable access: AM radio.  Curiously, only one program format satisfied him: conservative, talk radio.  With lots of time on his hands, the buoy tender listened to one right wing pundit after another.  The hours of consumption had a profound effect.  This guy lived and breathed conservative doctrine, with a plentiful blend of conspiracy theories, including how the so-called Trilateral Commission was nearing success in achieving global domination.

            I’m thinking about this conversation now, because I see how people with far more diverse content options nevertheless can and do gravitate to a narrow sliver.  My communications scholar friends talk and write about “selective perception and retention.”  Now, media consumers have to perform less work to search for, and receive their preferred content. Social networks do the work for them.  While my travel buddy, over time, gravitated to a particular sliver of content, algorithms and machine learning serve it up without any search costs, or effort.

            The buoy tender could have pursued sports talk radio, oldies music and a variety of alternatives to political talk radio.  Forty years ago, he had to make daily actions to tune a particular AM channel at a specific time, so-called appointment radio.  Now, Facebook and other social networks make the appointments for us, anytime, anywhere, via many devices and with no limitations on availability.

            I am growing increasingly concerned that we have “improved worse.”

How Smart are Algorithms?

            The algorithmic verdict arrived in less than sixty seconds: credit card application denied.

            My application resulted from a clerk’s scripted suggestion at checkout that I could get a 10% reduction on my 4k HDTV purchase at Best Buy simply by applying for their branded Citibank credit card. Sure, why not?

            Imagine my embarrassment when, at point of purchase, with other buyers in line behind me, “Deadbeat Rob” was holding up the line insisting on his creditworthiness.  After a full minute of “careful consideration,” (language contained in the scripted letter from Citibank explaining its verdict), three coordinating players reached a conclusion that I lacked “sufficient credit experience.”

            A pox of all their bourses: Experian for failing to generate a complete record of my credit “experience” and its policy of preventing interaction with a live person, EVER; Citibank for relying on Experian’s lazy, defective and incomplete credit recording; and Best Buy for allowing Citibank and Experian to ruin my interest in ever setting foot in their stores.

            I base my grievances on the common-sense view that I AM credit worthy: nearing 64, I have managed to make timely payments on six figure mortgages and hefty credit card balances.  I have an 800+ credit rating and five figure credit allowances.  I would reach the important 15-20 year experience with the same credit card, but the number drops to zero almost every time I receive an unsolicited, new card, with a different account number, because of a security breach.

            I have plenty of evidence to prove credit worthiness, if Experian and the other credit rating and reporting companies had algorithms making decisions based on the likelihood of not defaulting.  I have concluded that Experian has a mandate to predict likely use of credit, particularly likely need/inclination to pay on time.  Creditworthiness appears to be a secondary consideration.

            It may be that Experian deemed my credit history “inadequate,” because I have this measurable and reportable history of paying debts on time and a predisposition not to incur debt in the first place.  I apparently lack credit experience, because I have not joined the more common ranks of people willing, or obligated to pay 24% or more on credit card debt.

            I did get the opportunity to discuss this matter with a live, breathing human at Citibank.  She started with a scripted response mentioning that I while I did not “qualify” for a platinum colored card, I could receive a gold one upon paying a $59 annual fee.  With some prodding, she suggested that I could become more experienced with credit if I took out a mortgage, paid interest on credit card debt, used my cards more frequently, generated balances closer to my allowance and used more cards—like most red-blooded Americans.

            This experience and my ongoing research of two-sided markets confirm that people who pay in cash subsidize credit card users and encourage debt, perhaps even unsustainable debt. 

            Perhaps the Experian algorithm detected me as someone unlikely to incur debt, or even to use the credit card regularly.  Guilty as charged.

The Internet of Infallible Algorithms

            Capital One, a major credit card issuer, offers customers access to a streamlined credit report.  Upon examining my score, I found a B rating for oldest line of credit in light of having had a card only for 12 years.  One needs 15 years for an A rating.

            Hmmmm.  My Bank of America credit card states “Cardholder since 1997,” yet repeated efforts to get that company to correct its mistake have failed.  I keep getting canned responses from—get this—a collection agency that has expended its service wingspan to providing unhelpful “answers” to bank algorithm failures.

            Bank of America has violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by refusing to correct a credit mistake within 30 days of notification.  The algorithm lists my start date as 2003 and that becomes the truth notwithstanding what my card says, or the verifiable truth of the matter.

            So the next time a credit card company has to issue you a new card due to a security breech understand that the clock starts at zero in terms of line of credit vintage.

            In other words banks and their algorithms win every time.  They are infallible and there is no way to correct a mistake.

            This should trouble you as the future promises more algorithms and things making decisions and determining “facts.”  In my case, my credit rating takes a hit based on a clearly wrong calculation of time.

            It’s a matter of time before you find yourself immersed in a dispute that you cannot win, because the algorithms knows all and serves as judge, jury and executioner.