I used to always prefer to pay later (with no interest), cuz i heard it would prove schufa score but I just received an email from klarna, how in the future they will need to view all my purchases history to make sure it fits my budget and income.
What the heck? I thought EU was better for privacy. If we don’t buy things on credit, we get a bad credit score, and if we do, then we have to sell our data ?
This move is very good, and fucking about time! Some things should NOT be privacy based, because these services like Klarna might work for you, but they are destroying lifes for some who cant manage these kind of things.
They need to be accountable, and they cant if the dont get any information at all.
If you want the most privacy - which doesnt exists anyway, because VISA/Mastercard, Apple or Google Pay and your bank already has it - pay with cash.
This move by the EU is great. Dont act like you had privacy before the 20th of november anyway.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
If we don’t buy things on credit, we get a bad credit score
Huh? Isn’t “credit score” just a US thing? I’ve never once heard of it in a European context or encountered it myself. when I’ve had to borrow money they just requested my last 3 pay slips (only borrowed for my house, and a new car once), and in the case of buying my house I had to show a budget.
OP is in Germany where they have a private database called Schufa that pools information about you collected from banks, mobile carriers and internet providers, and provides a “score” to them as well as to landlords.
It’s borderline legal under GDPR because it doesn’t actually store anything about things like nationality, employment, religion, marital status or sensitive financial information like income, assets, expenses.
The score is based on things like loan existence & repayments, ongoing utility contracts (with privately owned companies), if you’ve filed for insolvency, how often 3rd parties inquire about your score and other circumstantial data.
Generally speaking you’re correct, in most countries there are very clear rules about loans that are based on what other loan repayment you have vs what’s your current income, and there are rules about how far much debt you can take as a ratio of the two (say, you can’t take a new loan if you’re already using 60% of your income to repay previous loans).
Also, the information about loans is typically restricted to this exact inquiry: can this person get a new loan (yes/no) and if yes what’s the maximum they allowed to repay per month (X euro). So the bank knows they can structure a loan to you based on a repayment of up to X per month, but nothing else.
I’m guessing Germany doesn’t have regulation like this (since accessing any information about your income and expenses is forbidden), so Schufa was created to be a (poor) substitute.
Klarna is already a privacy nightmare anyway.
Maybe it’s meant as a disincentive to keep people from using services like klarna because too many people aren’t financially responsible enough to handle it.
Sorry you got some benefit out of it, but I would just stop using it after this. It doesn’t help much and if you delete the account it’s one less account you have to worry about getting sold or exposed in a data breach. The EU is better than the US for a lot of consumer protections, potentially including this law, but not necessarily privacy.
