Cartel Office examines online retailers’ scoring

DThe Bundeskartelmutt has launched a so-called scoring test for online shopping, that is, to check the solvency of consumers who shop online. The scoring when ordering goods through online trading is “inconsistent and in many cases not easily understandable to consumers,” argues cartel office The move Thursday said a lack of transparency and consent could violate consumer rights.

mysterious scoring model

The president of the cartel office explained, “Many consumers are not aware that their creditworthiness is checked when shopping online with the help of so-called score values, especially when it comes to popular purchases on the account.” Andrew Mundato, Their authority will examine “whether and in what form online retailers provide information about how checks are made and on what criteria the credit check is actually based.”

The office also includes companies that may be relevant to scoring, such as credit agencies, which create a score value that provides an important factor for creditworthiness checks for online retailers. The authority is initially planning preliminary talks with experts and interest groups. This is followed by written surveys of about 50 selected online dealers and large credit agencies. The results will be published in the report after the completion of the investigation.

Credit agencies store personal data such as name, date of birth, place of birth and address as well as “credit history” with numbers of accounts, loans, mobile phone and lease contracts, unpaid bills or bankruptcies. With the help of this data and their mathematical-statistical process (scoring), they estimate the payment behavior of the consumer.