What are the differences between the 3 major credit companies Equifax, Transunion and Experian?
Feb, 2010 in Equifax Credit Report, Experian Credit Report, Transunion Credit ReportDo different credit inquires look at a specific credit company or they look at all three to determine your score. Why are there minor differences between the three reports one has my gas company account and the other two don’t.
Ex. 6 years ago I took a car loan, when they check my credit they told me I had child support which it was not true. I checked my credit report from one of the credit companies (because I did not know there were three) and It was not there so I figured it was a mistake since my dad had they same name as I do and he was paying child support. 5 years later I came to realize that it was on my Transunion report so I took the necessary steps to take it out. Why is this?
like any kind of business there is always competition, they use different systems too rate your score but most companies that give credit will only use 1 credit history company, experian and equifax are the most popular, thats all i can tell you about that!!!
2 Reasons:
a) The big 3 bureaus Equifax, Experian and TransUnion all use different scoring systems. They Experian uses the “Beacon” scoring system, Equifax uses the “empirica” scoring system and Trans Union uses the “FICO” scoring system. Each scoring system calculates your credit score using thousands of different variables so your scores will always be different. Most home loan lenders use your middle score, most credit card companies use just one bureau, some use 2 or all 3 scores to calculate your risk factor.
b) Some creditors, collection agencies or businesses only report to one bureau, some report to two, others report to all 3, thats why some items show up on only one or two bureaus.
Those are the facts.
Wants some more good info, or expert credit advice….
http://www.expert-credit-advice.com/
http://www.expert-credit-advice.com/credit_score.htm
I am in the process right now on fixing my credit and it is a hard task monitoring all three. The reason they are all different is different companies report to the credit company. The companies that check your credit can choose any of the three or all of the three. It is a good idea to check your credit every month to two months if you are fixing your credit or every six months if you are happy with your score and everything is correct on all three reports. try freecreditreport.com or truecredit.com
You have to remember what the purpose of the credit bureas are for……….creditors. They are also the ones that pay the bureaus to obtain the reports. It costs money for them to report to the credit bureaus. Usually it’s a financial decision by some higher up not to report to all three because it costs them too much money. That’s why all the bureaus are not the same when you check your report. Different creditors report to different credit bureaus. Some do choose to report to all three; all do not. That’s why it’s important to check all three before a major credit purchase. You had a personal experience that bears this out. Each maintains their own sales force and differences for marketing purposes, and each claims their own advantages. They all do about the same thing, though.
The credit bureaus don’t talk to each other since they are competitors of one another. It’s normal to have variences between the reports. The info listed is based on which bureau (or bureaus) the creditor contacts and reports info about your credit. Each of the companies use a slightly different formula to calculate your score as well.