Importance of Credit Reporting Agencies

There are basically three credit report agencies that are authorized to collect information on our credit record and they are also authorized to share this information with other business entities which need to have access to these records for some genuine reasons. Trans Union, Equifax and Experian are the three major credit reporting agencies. Some of us do not quite understand the need to share such private data with others, but the importance of this activity is immense. The credit reporting agencies are not affiliated with the government or they are not basically governmental agencies. The government only looks into the actions of these agencies so that they are under control. The credit reporting agencies are profit making agencies that usually function by keeping tracks on the credit records of millions of people.

The credit report agencies work in tandem with various organizations, mostly the money lenders who give out credit to individuals and companies. There are various forms of public records which are the basic source of a credit reporting agency. The different credit report agencies seek information on individual credit scores from various different sources. So it is quite possible that the information that they gather is surely not the same. There can be a discrepancy in the reports of these agencies due to the source of information being different. The three credit reporting agencies approach a number of financial organizations and prepare the list based on information from them. Some of the organizations go ahead and join all three credit reporting agencies while some don’t. Hence, the discrepancy! The organizations that join the list of all the three agencies are able sift through the entire list of data they have on each individual freely and use this information to rate the potential borrower. Prospective employers, landlords or insurance agents can view your credit report of they have joined the credit reporting agencies. So if you want to review your own credit report, ideally you need to ask for a credit report from all three credit reporting agencies. This way you will get the clear picture of where you stand in terms of credit rating. Many of us are not aware that we are permitted to receive a free copy of our credit report from each one of the credit reporting agencies each year. This way you can easily keep a track on your credit report each year by getting all the three copies.

It is essential for us to have a positive credit report since these days whichever agency or bank we wish to approach for loans etc, will be approaching the credit report agency for our credit ratings. This is the easiest way by which the lending agencies can find information on their prospective customer without having to a too much of credit checks themselves. Sometimes there are some dues which are pending towards a mobile bill or against our credit card payment, we should not ignore the same and make sure that we pay up and get a no dues from the credit card company or mobile company so that it doesn’t reflect badly on our credit report. The credit report agencies are very useful to the lending firms whose task is to lend money to borrowers without much hassle.
This is when they use the services of these credit reporting agencies to get a full report on the borrowers financial status.

Equifax, one of the three major credit reporting agencies founded in the year 1899, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Equifax now has more than seven thousand workers all over the US and overseas. There are a number of credit products that they offer their customers, ID Patrol which is an identity theft prevention tool, Credit watch gold which is useful for credit report monitoring and score watch for credit score monitoring. These tools and services provided by Equifax are highly useful for companies. Another equally esteemed credit report agency is Experian; the company has a worldwide presence with more than fifteen thousand employees in all. The US headquarters are based in Costa Mesa, California, and their international headquarters are located in Dublin and Ireland. Their services include credit reports, credit scores and the triple advantage product for credit monitoring.  The third major credit reporting agency is TransUnion, they are based in Chicago and Illinois, this company has records of over four hundred million consumers worldwide. The organization was founded in the year 1968 their services include credit reports and credit scores monitoring through a product known as True credit. They are also providing services in fraud detection and identity theft prevention protection.  The credit rating agencies are incredibly useful for the money lending organizations and to individuals as well as they get to keep a watch on what companies are rating them and hence make sure not to be in the defaulters list.