If you want to get a SIM card, an apartment, Internet, an account and much more, the Schufa is involved. Schufa stays for “Schutzgemeinschaft für allgemeine Kreditsicherung”. They score your credibility with an artificial intelligence. (AI)
My German house bank certifies that I have 25 years a clean record without any payment problems. And this is the truth. Also I earned well, so we are far away from being poor. We also have good assets, clearly far above average.
But all this is for the Schufa NOT important. The AI is a statistic program. This checks what people with similar behavior. did before The last 12 years my records were pretty silent as I did not live in the country. At Black Friday I bought three prepaid SIMs as the offer was good: Unlimited national calls in all national nets and text, 1 GB Internet, LTE for each 3,99 € for my wife and me. For my teenage son with 10 GB for 9,99 €. Than we moved to Berlin and changed the address. This seems to be a behavior, fraudsters are likely to do. In the past two month I got nothing what I wanted!
I wanted to subscribe a daily paper, the Tagesspiegel. They refused and asked for one year prepayment. Ok, this was no problem for me. So I paid. Now I can read Tagesspiegel Newspaper.
We are first living temporarily in an apartment. So I needed temporarily Internet. The best offer for me would be from Congstar, LTE Internet as it can be cancelled monthly. They refused. So I went to the far expensive Vodafone, that runs for 24 month. They refused me too. The sales man said, let’s try your wife. (He meant using her name). After 30 second we had a contract for Internet. Under her name, direct debit – from my account. I felt embarrassed!
I wanted to do “Car Sharing” with SIXT. They refused direct debit (normally it is around 5 € per tour) and only accepted payment by Credit Card.
DKB direct bank refused me as a customer, while American Express not even answered on my requests for a credit card. They just ignored me!
I wanted to buy an Audi A4 Avant for 40,000 €. Cash deal via www.meinauto.de. Even I wanted to pay in advance, they refuse. I went to Mercedes main branch – the largest in the world – for their “Black” sale. I wanted to buy a C-Class break for 42,000 €. The sales man lied and said, ALL cars are sold! For a cash deal!
The next step will be a real problem. As my health insurance will expire I need local health insurance. As I am self-employed I can not go in the public system. But the private insurance will test my creditability with Schufa.
“Smart data Scoring” is the term. In fact it is an useful algorithm and about 95 % right. But this is not very exact. The company can minimize their risks. But some people like me, who are correct, will suffer, if the company follows them 100% blindly.
I see the main problem in this blind trust. The companies just accept the information of the scoring agency. The employees are not allowed to check the client by themself. This is extremely stupid when it is about a cash in advance deal without any risk for the supplier.
As humans made too many mistakes, the management forbid them to make any decisions. Stupidity rules. At Miles I had 70 € fully paid balance since months and than they checked my credit score and found out, it is low. It is a score, an algorithm and does not reflect my actual credibility. But the joke is, I give them a credit and they blocked my account! A bad joke for the consumer! Specially when you miss your appointment, because you can not get the car.
One Reply to “Schufa – Your Credit Score”