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Know Your Credit Report Company |
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Written by Kevin Rose
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A credit report company is a company that manages your credit history. In today's credit based society, they are one of the most important companies you should know about. There are several of them, but there are three
that are the most important to know and to work with on a regular basis. This includes Transunion, Experience, and Equifax. These are the most commonly used credit reporting organizations in the United States by major credit card companies, home loan lenders, personal loan lenders and car loan lenders.
What Their Job Is? The job of a credit reporting agency is to report all of the information that each of your lenders tells them. For example if you have two credit card companies, ABC credit and XYZ Credit, although these companies are competing for your business and not affiliated with each other, they have a fundamental benefit to knowing how well you are managing your credit from all lenders, including their competition. So, each one will report to the third party reporting company your actions. This will include what your balance is, what your payments are, what amount you paid, if you made you payment on time, and the type of loan you have. Each month, computers handle this transaction for you, and although errors do happen, they are rare.
What You Should Know? One of the most important things to know about these reporting agencies, as they are more commonly known as, is that you, as a consume, have the right to use their services, too. You have the right to know what they are reporting about you to your potential credit lenders and who they are reporting it to. Each year, you have the right to one free credit report from each of these three companies. That means that every three months you should pull a credit report (without cost to you) from the company, examine what is on it and report any problems.
As you compare your credit report, spot any errors on that report and report them back. Each of these three companies now offers online reporting of errors. This means a simple only form is all that is needed to file a claim. The agency then goes to work to prove that the claim is authentic, which usually involves working closely with the credit companies. They must show proof of the claim otherwise it will be removed from your report. They have 30 days to make a decision here. By removing the errors on your credit report, you could boost your credit score, or even better, have a better representation of your true credit abilities on paper.
Do not look at the reporting agency as a problem, since they are simply providing information your lenders have provided to them. Ultimately, it is in your best interest to stay on top of your credit report by pulling these reports. It is the best way to get your credit score to be a true reflection of your credit usage. |
