Consumers who request credit through their cable providers to pay for service are a higher risk than the general population, according to SubscriberWise Ltd., a credit reporting agency for the communications industry.
The Massillon, Ohio, company said Sunday that it conducted a review of data from more than 250,000 credit submissions from its members, which include owners and operators of cable television services, over multiple years.
About half of the consumers in SubscriberWise's sample had one or more collection agency account in their file compared with about 31% for a random sample of consumers from one of the big credit bureaus, Craig Watts, the public affairs director for Fair Isaac Corp., said in SubscriberWise's press release.
A third of all SubscriberWise's member reports had at least one past-due account at the time of decisioning and 5% of submissions resulted in a "no hit" or "no subject found" response.
"The data demonstrate that operators indeed decision applicants with higher credit risk," David Hoffer, Massillon Cable's chief operating officer and the vice president of SubscriberWise, said in the release.
