Facebook and Twitter may soon affect credit scores. Really.

This concept is hard to believe I know. As if posting a picture you didn’t intend your co-workers to see or accidentally updating something to completely offend half of your friends list wasn’t bad enough, soon your Facebook and Twitter may diminish your ability to obtain a loan and blemish your credit report.

This concept is hard to believe I know. As if posting a picture you didn’t intend your co-workers to see or accidentally updating something to completely offend half of your friends list wasn’t bad enough, soon your Facebook and Twitter may diminish your ability to obtain a loan and blemish your credit report. 

This is taking the loan application process to a whole other level and it is already happening in parts of the world. Lenddo, a lending firm in Hong Kong has begun requesting access to the Facebook and Twitter accounts of their loan applicants. Underwriters are then able to check the applicants’ friends and what types of things posted on their pages and from there somehow decide if the applicant seems likely to default on a mortgage. If this isn’t terrifying enough, the CEO of Lenddo hopes to publically shame their customers by announcing late payments and defaults on the customers Facebook and Twitter! Seriously.

Thankfully for most of us we haven’t seen anything like this here in the United States. There has been interest expressed by the FICO credit rating agency as well as unidentified A-listers on the banking scene considering this type of “comprehensive” data mining. I imagine there would be an epic battle over the legality of corporate Facebook stalking. It will certainly be interesting to see how this may pan out in the future or if it even will.

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