Will you take your medicine tomorrow? You may not know but the FICO people think that they do. They also believe that what you purchase is an indicator of your ability to repay the debt.  Purchase luxury items at Saks Fifth Ave and you are OK but buy your groceries at King Kullen and you are less likely?  That’s what the FICO people believe and what they are marketing through various credit products offered by the credit bureaus directly to your creditors including banks and auto finance companies.

The company that invented the FICO credit score is now branching out and adopting some of the behavior-prediction methodologies used by Web advertisers, but with potentially more far-reaching effect.  The good people at FICO have a proprietary method for guessing whether you will pay your debts or not.  They will not tell anyone what goes into the “soup” so to speak but they can make or break countless millions of hardworking people at the push or a button.  Did you know that if you lose your wallet, and report lost credit cards to the issuer, they decrease your FICO score?

It has been reported in ConsumerAffairs.com that Fair Isaac and Company (FICO) will be selling its new behavior scores to insurance companies, lenders and others whose decisions can have a big effect on your finances, your employment prospects and even your health.

Their newest product, Medication Adherence Score, tries to measure the likelihood that you'll take your prescriptions on time. How about that? Has someone forgotten George Orwell’s famous novel “1984?” How can a credit rating company profess to know whether you will take a pill or not?

FICO is not very forthcoming about its methods.  It’s their dirty little secret but says it draws conclusions based on massive amounts of data it gathers about each of us, including such seemingly benign data as how long we've lived at the same address, whether we own a car, our marital status, employment, and so forth.

You may not think that his would be legal or even if it is who in their right mind would pay for such info?  You would be surprised to know that this is legal and, at this point isn’t even governed under existing laws.   Much of the info that is put together about you isn’t even taken from data about you but is instead a compilation of vast amounts of personal data compiled from numerous sources.  Do you feel like re-reading “1984?”

Getting back to your FICO score; you know that number that can determine how much interest that you will pay on your mortgage, auto-loan or credit cards and account for many thousands of dollars in interest that you will pay over your life.  Did you know that your income isn’t even part of the equation?  They claim to be able to predict your future likelihood of repaying debt but they don’t even consider your income?  How can that be?  Don’t ask, it’s their dirty little secret.

Patrick Ingegno can be reached at inner-circle@optimum.net or www.innercircledebtsolutions.com