A credit bureau,
or credit repository, is an entity that gathers information about consumers’ credit histories. Your credit history/report includes information regarding the following items:
- Identity information such as your name, address, social security number, spouse and date of birth.
- Payment habits such as how promptly you have made payments to previous creditors.
- Public records such as records of arrests, indictments, convictions, lawsuits, tax liens, marriage, bankruptcies, and court judgments.
- Debts.
- Other relevant credit data Information concerning your current employment such as the position you hold, length of your employment, and possibly your income.
- Information about your personal history such as the number of dependents you have, your previous addresses and information about your previous employment.
Credit bureaus sell credit reports to credit grantors, such as banks, finance companies, and retailers. Credit grantors use credit reports to determine whether or not a potential borrower is creditworthy.
These three bureaus provide nationwide coverage of consumer credit information. The credit bureaus are a for-profit system that generates billions of dollars in revenue each year from selling copies of credit reports to creditors and mailing lists. Trans Union made 1.5 BILLION dollars last year.
It is essential to understand that Credit Bureaus are nothing more than record keepers. Simply put, they keep a record of who has given you credit, when they gave you credit, how much credit you are given and whether or not you paid it back on time. When you want to obtain credit cards, loans, financing for a car or home, leases, apartments and sometimes even employment, the lender or bank will check your credit to see your financial history.
Credit Bureaus are paid by the people who request your credit file. Credit Bureaus are not run by banks, police, or government and they have no legal power over you. So don’t be intimidated by them.
They are the Credit Bureaus because they own large computer systems capable of storing credit information on everyone in the United States. However, because of the tremendous amounts of information on their computers, their method of storing information is very basic and contains numerous errors.
Since the bureaus have made so many errors in the past, all Federal Laws regarding credit information is very much in your favor.
How do the credit bureaus obtain information?
Credit bureaus obtain identification and credit information from credit grantors, such as banks, retailers, and collection agencies. Bureaus obtain monetary-related public record information directly from the court systems. credit repair website
