Understanding Credit Reporting Agencies (Made Easy!)

Never heard the term “credit reporting agencies”? Not sure if you should care? We’re here to set the record straight- credit reporting agencies do matter! And your awareness of what they are, what they do, and what you can do when they get things wrong is everything.

In fact, if credit report errors start popping up on your credit reports, causing totally unfair rejections and denials, understanding credit reporting agencies may end up making the difference between you being dragged through a seemingly endless credit and financial nightmare and you knowing how to quickly and easily get back to good in no time.

What Are Credit Reporting Agencies & Why Do They Matter?

Though the name sounds almost official, credit reporting agencies aren’t run by the government. They’re private, for-profit companies whose business is the sorting and selling of consumer data.

This data gets sold in the form of consumer reports, which are used to decide whether you get access to things like personal and auto loans, mortgages, credit cards, rental housing, insurance, utilities (without deposits), cell phone services, certain jobs, and more.

Why Are There Two Names for These Companies?

When you’re trying to get your mind around what credit reporting agencies are, it might be confusing to see that sometimes they’re called consumer reporting agencies instead. So, what’s the difference?

Nothing! The term consumer reporting agencies is the formal, legal name for any type of company that produces consumer reports (like credit reports, background check reports, tenant screening reports, etc.) It is defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which puts legal obligations on these companies and gives you legal rights to hold them accountable.

The term credit reporting agencies is just an informal name for those consumer reporting agencies that specifically produce credit reports. It’s how most people casually refer to them. It is the same as using the term credit bureaus.

Importantly, whether you use the casual name, the formal name, or just say credit bureaus or credit reporting companies, they have to follow the law! So, call them whatever you like, as long as you know they have legal obligations to you and you have legal rights to hold them accountable.

How Do Credit Reporting Agencies Get Your Information?

Many people wonder where credit reporting agencies get information in the first place. Hint: It’s not by getting the scoop on your spending habits from your mom.

CRAs get your information from three main sources of data:

1. ‍Data furnishers- these are the banks, lenders, credit card companies, and others that actually finance your purchases, give you a mortgage or a line of credit, hold your money in accounts, provide you cell phone service and more. Data furnishers are regular companies that send (furnish) your data to the credit bureaus about every 30 days or so. This includes negative items like missed or late payments, debts in collections, and charge offs. And it includes positive items like on-time payments, accounts in good standing, etc. The information provided by data furnishers is the stuff that primarily makes up your credit reports and is included in tenant screening reports.
2. ‍Data brokers- these are companies that gather publicly available information to sell to consumer reporting agencies. They get data from places like criminal records, driving records, court filings, municipal property records, etc. Data brokers are in the business of selling (brokering) data. The information provided by these third-party data brokers plays a big role as one of the background check data sources for employment background checks and tenant screening reports.‍
3. Direct research- For some items in a consumer report, humans need to just pick up the phone, submit a request, or do some online snooping to gather the relevant information. This can include things like education or employment verifications. Did you really get a BS in Accounting from Penn State? It may take people power to confirm this claim on your resume.

The Top 3 Credit Reporting Agencies  

You likely already know these three because they’re so big and so dominant in the credit reporting world that they’ve come to be known as the credit bureaus:

• Experian
• Equifax
• TransUnion

While these top 3 credit reporting agencies aren’t the only credit bureaus, they are the main credit bureaus and, for most people, they are thought of as the only credit bureaus. When someone pulls your credit, runs a credit check, looks at your credit report, or makes a hard credit inquiry, these are the companies they’re usually talking about.

Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion each produce a proprietary credit score, which means they use slightly different formulas for analyzing your data and assigning you a credit score.

Consumer Reporting Agencies by Category

While this is a list of consumer reporting agencies, most of which you likely have never heard of before, it is not an exhaustive list. There are others out there as well.

But this list, which includes credit bureaus, tenant screening companies, employment background check companies, and specialty reporting companies, is a good consumer reporting overview of the types of companies gathering and selling your data for different purposes.

1.     National Credit Reporting: Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, CSC Credit Services, Credit Technologies, Global Payments

2.    Employment Background Checks: Checkr, HireRight, Sterling, GoodHire, Accurate Background, ADP, Crimcheck, Verification Services, Truescreen

3.    Tenant Screening: TransUnion Smart Move, TurboTenant, AppFolio, Experian RentBureau, CoreLogic, Rental Property Solutions, First Advantage, On-Site

4.    Medical Reporting: Certiphi Screening, MIB, Milliman IntelliScript

5.    Check and Bank Screening: ChexSystems, TeleCheck, Early Warning Services, Certegy, Electronic Check Alliance Processing

6.    Gambling & Sports Betting: Certegy Gaming Services

7.    Personal Property Insurance: A-PLUS, Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange (CLUE), Insurance Information Exchange

8.    Retail/Purchase Behavior: First Data, The Retail Equation

9.    Specialty: ChoicePoint, Innovis, LexisNexis, SageStream, L2C

10.  Utility Screening: National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange

What to Do If a Credit Reporting Agency Makes Mistakes with Your Data

Not only are credit reporting mistakes extremely frustrating and frequently harmful, they also HAPPEN ALL THE TIME.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulates credit reporting agencies, including the credit bureaus, and gives you powerful legal rights to challenge and fix credit reporting errors.

Your FCRA rights include:

• the right to have only accurate information included in your consumer reports, including your credit reports
• the right to file a credit report dispute if inaccurate, misleading, or false information shows up
• the right to sue credit bureaus if your dispute is mishandled, ignored, or repeated
• the right to seek compensation for any harm caused by credit report errors

The Easiest Way to Get Credit Report Help

When credit report errors and careless data mistakes impact your financial and credit health, access to opportunities, mental and emotional wellbeing, and more, Mistake.com makes it easy to fight back.

At Mistake.com, we handle credit report disputes for you…for FREE. Our highly experienced team of attorneys knows when and how to escalate your disputes if the credit bureaus or other credit reporting agencies refuse to play by the rules.

We do the work, you get the peace of mind.

Call today!

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